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INTRODUCT ION
TO VOLUME FIVE
VOLUME F !VE BRINGS us to a series of writings that concern themselves
with the themes of lineage and devotion in the context of
vajrayana Buddhism and Chogyam l'rungpa's transmission of dharma co
America. The first rwo offerings in chis volume, Crazy Wisdom and Illu sion's
Game: The Life and Teaching of Naropa, are commentaries by Chogyam
Trungpa on the significance of the lives of two great lineage
holders: Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche, who introduced Buddhism
to T ibet in the eighth century; and Naropa, the Indian guru who gave
the root teachings of the Kagyii line.age to his Tibetan disciple Marpa in
the eleventh century. Marpa is known as the fa ther of the Kagyii lineage
in Tibet, and it is his life and teachings that are the subject of the next
two selections in Volume Five. In this case, The Collected Works includes
Chogyam Trungpa's preface and his translator's colophon to The Life of
Marpa the Translator, which was translated by Trungpa Rinpoche and the
Nalanda Translation Committee (NTC) and first published in 1982. Since
translations in genera.I are beyond the scope of The Collected Works, only
the preface and the colophon are included. Likewise, The Collected Works
includes Chogyam Trungpa's foreword and colophon to The Rain of Wisdom,
another translation undertaken by the NTC under Rinpoche's direction.
Rinpoche's own songs, or religious poetry, that are part of the
English edition of The Rain of Wisdo'l'n are also presented.
The next selection is an excerpt from The Sadhana of Mahamudra, the
tantric text that Chogyam Trungpa r eceived as terma in Bhutan in 1968.
This is followed by "Joining Energy and Space," an article based on some
of the teachings that he subsequently gave to his smdents about the
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significance of the sadhana. The Sadhana of Mahamudra brings together
the ultLmate teachings from two great Tibetan spiritual lineages: the
dzogchen, or maha ati, teachings of the yingma and the mahamudra
teachings of the Kagyi.i.
Next are two short articles that present the vajrayana practice of
mantra, which uses tbe repetition of sacr d syllables to invoke the wisdom
and energy of egolessness in the form of various herukas,' or nonth
eistic deities. The first article, " lUM: An Approach to Mantra," is a
general explanation of the basic usage of mantra as well as a specific
discussion of the mantra HUM, which is the seed, or root, syllable for all
of the herukas. The next article, "Explanation of the Vajra Guru ancra,"
also presents general guidelines for understanding the practice of
mantra. However, the main body of this piece is an explanation of this
mantra and its association with invoking the power and presence of
Padmasambhava.
ext i an interview with Chogyam Trungpa on the ngondro practices,
or the four foundations, which are the entrance into the formal
practice of vajrayana. This interview was part of the introduction to the
English translation of The Torch of Certainty, a classic Tibetan text on ng6ndro
composed by Jamg6n Kongtri.il the Great and translated by Judith
Hanson. Trungpa Rinpoche's foreword from this book is also included.
"The Practicing Lineage" and "The Mishap Lineage" discuss he origins
of Trungpa R.inpoche's own spiritual lineage, the line of the Trungpas.
Then there is the short piece "Teachings on the Tulk:u Principle"
and finally three articles on Milarepa, Tibet's most famous Buddhist
yogi.
Lineage, one of the main topics of this volume, means the continuity
and transmission of the awakened state of mind, which is passed down
in an unbroken, direct line from teacher to disciple, beginning with the
Buddha- or a buddha- and continuing up to the present day . There are
many branches of transmission. Some of them trace back directly to
Gautama Buddha, the buddha of this age or world realm who appeared
in human form. Other l'neages trace back to a transmission from one or
more of the buddbas who exist on a celestia l plane, such as Vajradhara
or Samanrabhadra, who manifest in a transcendental or dharmakaya aspect.
This is often the case in the T ib etan lineages.
r. l-fomka is the Sanskrit term. Yidam is the T iberan for a vajrayana deiry.
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As mentioned earlier, the teachings presented here concern themselves
with two major branches within Tibetan Buddhism, both of which
were part of Chogyam Trungpa's direct heritage: the teachings of the
Nyingma, or "ancie nt," lineage of Padmasambhava; and those of the
Kagyu, the "oral" or "command" lineage, which originated with the Indian
guru Tilopa, who received the ultimate teachings directly from the
dharmakaya buddha Vajradhara.
Chogyam Trungpa's primary intent was not to present a historical or
scholarly approach to these lineages of transmission. As he says in Crazy
Wisdom, "Our approach here, as far as chronology and such things are
unconcerned, is entirely unscholastic. For those of you who are concerned
with daces and other such historical facts and figures, I am afraid
I will be unable co furnish accurate data. Nevert heless, the inspiration of
Padmasambhava, however old or young he may be, goes on" (page 65).
In his talks on the forefathers of the T ibetan Buddhist teachings, he drew
on events from their spiritual biographies, which are scories of complete
liberation, or n.amthars, composed i11 order to bring to life the journey
that each of these great pract itioners made. He shows us the enormous
commitment to sanity that they ma,de and the extraordinary difficulties
that they endured in order to become holders of the wisdom of buddhadharma
and to transmit that wisdom to others. Above all, he presents
their lives as examples to guide us iin awakening our own sanity as we
tread on the path of dharma.
Devotion, the ocher main theme of this volume, is the emotional attitude
and experience of the student that make transmission and realization
possible. Devotion is the water 11:hat flows through the teachings and
maintains them as a living transmission. Devotion is the human element
of lineage, the bond between teach er and student that brings vajrayana
to life. If one approaches the vajrayana teachings purely with the intellect,
it is like trying to use physics to fathom outer space. T he physics of
space may be extremely subtle and p rofound, but studying those principles
and equations does not bring any genuine experience of space. In fact,
it may make it seem that direct personal experience of something so farreaching
and profound would be impossible.
What makes the impossible possible is, first, meeting a genuine
teacher, someone who is the embodiment of what one is seeking. Second,
one has to make fri ends wicih outer space as presented in this
human form. T hat is the role of devotion in one's relationship with the
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teacher. It involves surrendering one's egotism and selfishness unconditio
nally in order to gain a vast persrective. It seems that there is really
only o ne thing that allows us to sacrifice ourselves completely, and that
is love_ We have co begin with love- completely giving ourselves to one
person, the teacher, before we can surrender properly to the whole
world. Without a personal connection, devotion is too abstract and, paradoxically
, too limited. You might say that it's not important to surrender
to a teacher per se: you could give yourself to anyone. However,
devotion is about unconditional surrender, not about creating further
ego-oriented entanglements. ln the student's "love affair" with the
teacher, you give yourself to space; you give yourself to someone who
speaks for space. That someone is the teacher, and that surrender, or
abandonment of one elf, is the experience of devotion.
Jn many respects, this is even more difficult to talk about now than
it was when Chogyam Trungpa first gave these talks and translated the
devotional texts that are excerpted or referred to here. Throughout his
years of teaching in America, Chogyam Trungpa warned against the
dangers of charlatan gums. As he said in Cutting Through Spi.ritua.l Maten.•
alism, "Because America is so fertile, seeking spirituality, it is possible for
America to inspire charlatans .... Because America is looking so hard
for spirituality, religion becomes an easy way to make money and
achieve fame." 2 He advised people to be careful, to think rwice, a11d co
use th eir intelligence to seek out and connect with a genuine teacher.
However, chere is an entirely different approach chat has become more
popular in the last few years , which i to do away with the absolute
nature of the student-teacher relationship altogether, so that the student
goes it on his or her own, accepting advice where it is helpful but never
surrendering beyond a certain point.
That is certainly one way to avoid a disastrous relationship with a
fraudulent teacher. Rather than accepting a "pseudo" guru, it is preferable
to keep one's own counsel. Thei:e is much that can be accomplished
on one's own or with a reacher a adviser rather than as the ultimate
reference point. To learn to meditate and practice loving-kindnes one
cou ld do far worse than that! For most of us, to accomplish just that is a
lifetime's work.
But to deny the possibility of attaining stainless, pure enlightenment
2. C1rnil1g Tl1r011gh Spirirual Marni11lism, Shambhala Classics edition (2002), p. r8.
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and to deny the possibility of the means-to deny the value of genuine
devotion and the existence of genuine teachers- seems to be closing off
one of the greatest opportunities that human beings have: the opportunity
to be fully awake. Awakening is not achieved easily or comfortably,
and the journey is not without dangers and extremes, but that makes it
no less real or precious. In this volume are the wonderful stories of some
of the outrageous and fully awakened gurus of the Buddhist lineage.
What an inspiration they are! At the same time, it is almost unthinkable
that these are stories about real people, not just mythical figures in the
past. Yet part of Chogyam Trungpa's genius was his ability to personally
introduce you to this cast of characters, as though they were sitting in
front of you, as though they might walk in the front door anytime. As
though one of them might be your [each er ...
In Crazy Wisdom- which is made up of talks edited from two seminars
that Chogyam Trungpa gave in December 1972- we are introduced
to some of the main themes in the life of Padmasambhava. An Indian
teacher, be brought the Buddhist teachings to Tibet in the eighth century
at the invitation of King Trisong Detsen. Thus, he is regarded as the
father of Buddhism in T ibet and is revered by all Tibetan lineages and
by the Tibetan people. Often, biographies of a teacher present the story
of how that person became a student of the buddhadharma, met his or
her guru, underwent extensive trials and training, and finally became enlightened,
or realized. Such stories provide inspiration and many helpful
lessons to students entering the path. In this case, however, Padmasambhava
is considered to have been primordially enlightened. That is, he
was born fully enlightened, it is said, as an eight-year-old child seated on
a lotus flower in the middle of a lake. It is a highly improbable story. As
Chogyam Trungpa says, "For an infant to be born in such a wild, desolate
place in the middle of a lake on a lotus is beyond the grasp of conceptual
mind .... Such a birth is impossible. But, then, impossible things
happen, things beyond our imagination" (p. 27). Rather than trying to
explain or defend th.is tale, Trungpa Rinpoche accepts the story of Padmasambhava's
birth as the ground tO discuss primordial innocence. As
he says, " It is possible for us to discover our own innocence and childlike
beauty, the princelike quality in us . . . it is a fresh discovery of perception,
a new discovery of a sense of things as they are" (p. 28). Throughout
this book, he is describing not so much the life of a Buddhist saint
who lived over a thousand years ago , but the aspects of our own journey
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and our own lives that might connect with this timeless and extraordinary
energy.
Sherab Chodzin Kohn, the editoir of Crazy Wisdom , has rendered this
material artfully, with love and fidelity to the original talks. In reading
this book, one has the opportunity to plumb the depths of what crazy
wisdom actually is-which is both crazier and wiser than one could possibly
imagine!
"Crazy wisdom" was one of a number of terms that Chogyam Truogpa
coined in English. It has caught on and has come to be used to describe
a variety of styles of behavior, some of them more crazy than
wise. In his original meaning of the term, which is a translation of the
Tibetan yeshe cholwa, it describes the state of being of someone who has
gone beyond the limitations of conventional mind and is thus "crazy"
from the limited reference point of conceptual thinking; yet such a person
is also existing or dwelling in a state of spontaneous wisdom, free
from thought in the conventional sense, free from the preoccupations of
hope and fear. Crazy wisdom is sometimes referred to as "wisdom gone
beyond." The outrageousness of crazy wisdom is that it will do whatever
needs to be done to help sentient b eings: it subdues whatever needs co
be subdued and cares for whatever needs its care. lt will also destroy
what needs to be destroyed. Padmasambhava was the embodiment of
crazy wisdom; hence the title of the book. This topic is particularly alive
and juicy in the hands of Chogyam. Trungpa because he was a guru in
the lineage of crazy wisdom. It is in part his own fearless wisdom that
he communicates in this book.
Sherab Chodzin Kohn also edited the next book in Volume Five, Illu sion's
Game: The Life and Teaching of Naropa, a commentary on the biography
of the great Indian teacher. Naropa's biography takes the more
traditional approach of Tibetan spiritual biography: it is the inspired tale
ofNaropa's arduous search for his guru and his experiences while studying
with the Indian master Tilopa. Illusion's Game is based on two seminars
in which Trungpa Rinpoche reflected on the meaning of events in
Naropa's life, using the biography translated by Herbert V. Guenther as
his main reference point. Mose of cine students who attended the seminars
had read Dr. Guenther's book. In Illusion's Game, excerpts from Dr.
Guenther's t ranslation are included to help readers understand the context
of the discussion , and in his editor's introduction, Sherab Cho-
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dzin also provides an excellent summary of the salient events in the
biography.
Naropa was the abbot of Nalanda University. One day while he was
studying, an ugly old woman suddenly appeared and asked him if he
undersrood the words or the sense of the Buddhist teachings he was
reading. She was very happy when he told her that be unde rstood the
words, but she became very angry w hen he said that he also understood
the sense. He asked her to tell him who, then, knew the real meaning,
and she answered that he should seek her brother Tilopa. Inspired by
this encounter, Naropa left the university, much to the dismay of his
colleagues and students, and set out to find his guru Tilopa.
On the way, he encountered one horrific illusion after another. Each
situation was a rest by Tilopa of his prospective disciple's understanding,
and on each occasion Naropa missed the point, so that he had to keep
searching on and on. Eventually, he found Tilopa eating fish entrails by
the side of a lake. This was just the beginning. Naropa had to undergo
many trials, over many years, until finally he became fully realized. As
Sherab Chodzin Kohn tells us in the introduction of the book, "Tilopa
required him [Naropa] to leap from the roof of a tall temple building.
Naropa's body was crushed. He suffered immense pain. Tilopa healed
him with a touch of his hand, then gave him instructions. This pattern
was repeated eleven more times. Eleven more times Tilopa remained
either motionless or aloof for a year; then Naropa prostrated and asked
for reaching. Tilopa caused him co throw himself into a fire, . . . be
beaten nearly to death, have his blood sucked out by leeches, be pricked
with flaming splinters ... ," and on the story goes. It is difficult to know
what to make of such a tale. We could dismiss it as craziness or treat it
as symbolism. But could we imagine that such things actually took place
and that such people could actually exist?
Trungpa Rinpoche published a poem in First Thought Best Tho ught titled
''Meetings with Remarkable People." After describing encounters
with three very strange beings, who are actually vajrayana deities, he
says:
Can you imagine seeing such people and receiving and
talking to them?
Ordinarily, if you told such stories to anybody, they would
think you were a nut case;
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But, in this case, I have to insist th at I am no t a nut case;
Don't you think meeting such. sweet friends is worthwhile
and rewarding?
J would say meeting them is meeting with remarkable men
and women:
Let us believe that such things do ex ist. 3
In that spirit, it may be valuable to explore the life of Naropa and
how it might apply personally to oneself. Not only does Trungpa Rinpoche
present the outrageous qualities of aropa's life, but he also draws
analogies to our own experience. Of aropa's trials, he writes, "these
twelve experiences that aropa went through were a continuous unlearning
process. To begin with, he had to un learn, to undo the cultural
facade. Then he had to undo the philosophical and emotional facade.
Then he had to step out and become free altogether. This whole process
was a very pa.info! and very deliberate operation. This does not apply to
Naropa and his time alone. This could also be something very up-todate.
This operat ion is applicable as long as we have conflicting emotions
and erroneous beliefs about reality" (p. 186). From that point of view, the
story makes good sense. However, on another level, it remains utterly
outrageous. If we look at most of the stories about the lives of the Tibetan
lineage holders-Padmasambhava, T ilopa, aropa, Marpa, Milarepa,
and others- we see that these were people who did not exclude
anything from their experience. They could, in fact, be quite terrifying in
th eir fearlessness.
In the article "Milarepa: A Warrior's Life," which appears in Volume
Five, Trungpa Ri.npoche includes the last instructions given by the yogi
Milarepa to his students, as he lay on his deathbed: "Rejec all that increases
ego-dinging, or inner poison, even if it appears good. Practice all
chat benefits others, even if it appears bad. T his is the true way of
dharma .... Act wi ely and courageously according to your innate insight,
even at the cost of your life." The great forefathers of the lineage
were willing to work with whatever might come up. In fact, they delighted
in embodying the most extreme aspects of human experience, if
3. First Tl,011gl,t Ilesf Tltougltt (1983), p. 125.
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in doing so they could help others. From their point of view, they were
not striving to be outrageous or even helpful; their behavior was just the
natural expression of what is.
This is the training that Chogyam Trungpa had himself received. A
tory from his early life illustrate how he put thi training into effect, in
extreme as well as ordinary circumstances. When T ibet was invaded by
the communist Chinese, he had to flee the country over the Himalayas
to avoid imprisonment and probable death. Before he set out on his journey
to India, he heard of people being tortured and killed; his monastery
was sacked; there was a price on his head. The journey out of Tibet
lasted ten months- an almost unimaginably long time to be trekking on
foo t over the Himalayas (without modern mountain gear, jeeps, or thermal
underwear, one might add) , constantly in fear of being discovered
by the Chinese, while facing extraordinary phy ical difficulties, crossing
one high pas after another, fording roaring rivers in the dead of wi.nter,
reduced in the end co boiling saddlebags for food. • When Trungpa Rinpoche
and his parry reached the Brahmaputra River, close to the end of
the journey, they had ro make their crossing at night in . omewhat un table
boats made of leather. Someone in a nearby town had alerted the
Chinese that a group of Tibetans v.ras going across that night, and ch
Chinese ambushed Rinpoche's party. Out of more than two hundred
traveling together, fewer than two dozen made it across. Trungpa Rinpoche
luckily was one of those who did. Reaching the other side while
hearing gunshots in the backgroun d, he and most of the rernai.ni_ng band
hid in some holly trees until the next night. In Born in Tiliet, he wrote,
'We dared not open our food pack and there was no water. We could
only moi ten our lip. with the boar frost."' While they were hiding, hoping
to reconnect with some of the rest of the party who they thought
had escaped capture, they could hear and sometim es see the Chinese
searching for them. Their clothes had been soaked during the crossing,
and the weather was so cold that their clo thing became frozen to their
skin, so it crackled when they moved. Later that day, as it became dark,
they climbed for five hours to reach shelter in some fir trees above the
village. liding in the cover of the trees, after everything they had been
4. ibe story of Chogyarn 'Trungpa's voyage out of Tibet is told in his au tobiography
Bam in Tiber, which appears in Vo lume One.
5. Born in Tibet (1976), p. 233.
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through, Rinpoche and his attendant quietly discussed whether or not
their experiences were a test of their meditation and how their meditative
equanimity would fare if they were captured the next day by the
Chinese. Several members of the party made jokes about doing the yoga
of inner heat to try to keep warm. Rinpoche and others found quite a
lot of humor in this dire siniation.
This is not exactly a crazy wisdom story, except that it is almost inconceivable
that, faced with the loss of family and friends, with the prospect
of capture and possible torture or death, Chogyam Trungpa and his
companions- many of whom were also highly trained practitionersapproached
their experience with ev,enhandedness and humor and seemingly
very little fear. That in itself is rather crazy but also seems quite
wise, and it does remind one of the hneage forefathers and their omrageous
journeys to freedom.
When the going gets tough, these are people you might want to have
on your team. In that vein, it is worth looking twice at what Chogyam
Trungpa has to say about the life of these great Buddhist adepts. It is
indeed applicable to things we may face today- or tomorrow, Their
compassion was compassion for the toughest times, It may be just what
the world needs now.
Both Crazy Wisdom and Illusion's Game are the work of a great storyteller.
In his first five or six years in North America, Chogyam Trungpa
taught more than forty seminars Oill the life and teachings of the Kagyti
forefathers. (The life of Padmasambhava was a less common topic. In
addition to the two seminars that were edited for Crazy Wisdom, he presented
one other seminar specifically on the life and teachings of Padmasambhava.)
He also gave several seminars on his own teacher, Jamgon
Kongtrtil, and on the lineage of the Trungpa tulkus. In seminars on other
topics, Rinpoche often would bring up a story about Tilopa, Naropa,
Marpa, Milarepa, or Gampopa to illustrate a point he was making. T hese
stories are included in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism and other
popular books. When he told these tales, you felt that he knew these
people; he definitely seemed to be on a first-name basis with them. And
like any good father telling his children about their grandparents and
great-grandparents, one point of his storytelling was to make the
younger generation feel close to the ancestors and the ancestral wisdom.
He never failed to make those in the audience feel that they were part
of or just about to join this lineage of awakened mind.
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The Life of Marpa tlie Translator continues the theme of p erilous journeys
and extreme tria ls on the path to realization Marpa was the chief
disciple of the Indian gu u Na opa, whose search for enlightenment is
the subject of Illusion's Game. Marpa was born and lived in southeastern
Tibet. He made three journeys to fnd ia, filled with obstacles and difficult
tests of bis understanding and devotion. In India, Marpa obtained the
teachings that form the core of the Kagyu tradition, and he translated
many of these Indian teachings into the Tibetan language. Marpa's lifestyle
has ome parallel to those of modern student , in that he was a
married householder with a number of children. le owned and operated
a farm and outwardly led a rather ordinary and quite secular life. SuperficiaJly,
at least, it may be ea ier to connect with Marpa's approach than
with the more austere lifestyles of ome of the other lineage holders.
Nevertheless, his understanding of and dedication to the dharma were
anything but ordinary.
ln his preface and colophon to Th.e Life of Marpa, Trungpa Rinpoche
pays homage to Marpa as the founder of the Kagyii lineage in Tibet.
Rinpoche also talks about the process of translating this book and the
kinship that he feels with Marpa as one translator to another. Indeed, the
translation process that Chogyam Trungpa organized and which continues
to this day, more than fifteen years after his death, has proven very
successful in furthering the translation of many Tibetan texts into English.
The alanda Translation Committee, the group of Rinpoche's stu dents
who collaborated with him on the transla tion of The Life of Marpa
the Translator, as well as on The Rai.n of Wisdom, i to be congratulated
for its exce!Jent work on these and many other projects.
The alanda Translation Committee s first major project for general
publication was The Rain of Wisdom., a translation of the Kagyli Gurtso,
songs of the forefa thers and lineage holders of the Karma Kagyu lineage.
Chogyam Trungpa very much wanted to bring these wonderful songs of
devotion and spiritual liberation into the English language. First compiled
and edited in the sixteenth century by the eighth Karmapa, Mik.yo
Dorje, the Kagyii Gurtso (literally ''The Ocean of Songs of the Kagyii")
was intended to be "the liturgy for a chanting service that would invoke
the blessings of the entire Karma Kagyu lineage. With the same aim in
mind, successive editions of the Kagyu G1trtso have added songs by holder
of the Karma Kagyii lineage born after the time of Mikyo Dorje."•
6 . The Rain of Wisdom (1980), afterword by the NT C, p. 304.
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(In keeping with tradition, the English edition of The Rain of Wisdom includes
songs by a current lineage holder, Chogyam Trungpa himself.)
ln the foreword, Rinpoche talks about how he read the Kagyu. Gurtso
as a child and how it made him weep with longing and devotion. This
magnificent collection of poetry, with many accompanying srories, still
has the power to evoke joy and sadness and the inspiration ro practice
the heart teachings of the buddhadharma. Trungpa Rinpoche advises
readers of this book to "reflect on the value and wisdom which exist in
these songs of the lineage in the folllowing ways. First there are the life
examples of our forefathers to inspire our devotion. There are songs
which help us understand the cause and effect of karma and so illuminate
the path to liberation. There are songs which give instruction in
relative bodhichitta, so that we can realize the immediacy of our connection
to the dharma. Some are songs of mahamudra and transmit how
we can actually join together bliss ai.nd emptiness through the profound
methods of coemergence, melting, and bliss. Other songs show the realization
of Buddha in the palm of our hand .... Reading these songs or
even glancing at a paragraph of th is literature a lways brings timely messages
of how to conduct oneself, how to discipline oneself" (p. 287).
Once again, the stories and wisdom of past teachers are not just of
historical interest but are presented to inspire our own journey on the
path. T he courage, majesty, and conviction of the Kagyi.i gurus are overwhelming.
Just reading Trungpa Rinpoche's introduction and his few
songs, one gains a sense of the grandeur and the heartfelt depth of realization
contained in The Rain of Wisdom.
In what may have been purely a fortuitous coincidence, the translation
of the Kagyii. Gurtso was published in 1980, when students of Chogyam
Trungpa were celebrating the tenth anniversary of his arrival in
North America. The publication of this important text in the English
language seems a fitting testament to all that he had accomplished in ten
short years. In addition to having produced a brilliant translation, the
members of the Ni!ilandi!i Translation Committee must be acknowledged
for the excellent afterword tbey contributed to the text, as well as for
the extensive notes and glossary.
In 1976, one of Chogyam Trungpa's teachers from Tibet, an elder
statesman and revered guru of the Nyingma lineage, His Holiness Dilgo
Khyentse Rinpoche, made his first visit to America, at Trungpa Rinpoche's
invitation. He was accompanied by two attendants, Lama Yonx:
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t en Gyamtso (who had been an attendant of Trungpa Rinpoche's at
Surmang Monastery, accompanying him on his e cape from Tibet) and
Lama Ugyen Shenpen, a sh1dent of Khyentse Rinpoche's for many years.
With Khyent e Rinpoche's ble sing, Lama Ugyen stayed on in America
to work with the Nalanda Translatio,11 Committee after His Holiness departed.
His extensive understanding of T ibetan literature and vajrayana
teachings, as well as his growing grasp of English, made it possible for
the TC to make great strides in their translation work. His input was
instrumental to the successful translation of both The Rain of Wisdom and
The Life of Marpa. Lama Ugyen worked with the TC until his death in
1994.'
Next in Volume Five are the excerpt from The Sadhana of Mahamudra
and an article about the meaning of the text. The sadhan a, which Trung•
pa Ri npoche " discovered" in Bhutan in 1968 is a particu lar kind of text
or teaching called terma. In Tibet, Chogyam Trungpa had already been
recognized as a terton, a teacher who "finds" or reveals terma, which
are the teachings that Padmasambhava conceaJed in physical locatio ns
throughout Tibet and in the realm of mind and space. As Trungpa Rinpoche
describes in Crazy Wisdom, "He [Padmasambhava] had various
writings of h is put in gold and silver containers like capsules and buried
in certain appropriate places in the different parts ofTibet so that people
of the fu ture would rediscover them .... This process of rediscovering
the treasures has been happening all along, and a lot of sacred teachings
have been revealed. One example is the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Another
appro ach to preserving treasures of wisdom is the style of the tho ught
lineage. Teachings have been rediscovered by certain appropriate teachers
who have had m emories of them and w ritten them down from
7. The translation committee has quite a large number of other members, and it is not
feasible to name all of them here. However, in the acknowledgments tO Tlte Rain of
Wisdom , a central translation committee for this project is identified , "consisting of Robin
Kornman, John Rockwell, J r., and Scott Wellenbach in collaboration with Lama Ugyen
Shenpen, Loppon Lo dro Do~je Holm, and Larry Mermelstein [the Executive Director of
the NTC]." In Tl1e Life of lvlarpa, the core group is identified as David Cox, Dana Dudley,
John Rockwell, Jr., Ives Waldo, and Gerry Weiner. in collaboration wi rh oppon Lodro
Dorje and Larry Mermelstein- with much guidance from Trungpa Rinpoche and Lama
Ugyen. These are just some of the members of the NTC who worked on these translations.
The large membership of the rranslation group points out: how quickly and to
what extent Rinpoche was able to share the wealth of his tradition, including so many
bright minds and dedicared students in his work.
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memory. Thls is another kind of hidden treasure" (pp. q2- 43 ). The
Sadhana of Mahamudra is such a mind terma.•
This text is particularly important to our discussion here because of
how it joins together the teachings of both the yingma and Kagyu lineages.
As Chtigyam Trungpa says in the accompanying article, "Joining
Energy and Space," "The lineage o f The adhana of Mahamudra is the
two traditions of immense crazy wisdom and immense dedication and
devotion put together. T he Kagyii, or mahamudra tradition, is the devotion
lineage. T he yingma, or ati tradition, is the lineage of crazy wisdom.
T he sadhana brings these two traditions together as a prototype of
how emotion and wisdom, energy and space, can work together"
(p. 312). Additionally, the sadbana contains a vivid description of the obstacles
presented by physical, psychological, and spiritual materia.lism in
the modern age and prescribes unwavering devotion to wakefulness as
the ant idote to the materiali stic o utloo k.
WhLle in England, Chogyam Trungpa had been tutoring the crown
prince (now the king) of Bhutan, J igme Singye Wangchuk while the
prince was studying at Ascot. At the invitation of the queen of Bhutan,
Trungpa Rinpoche journeyed to Bhutan in 1968. Rinpoche was accompanied
to Asia by one of his young English srndents, Richard Arthure (who
worked with Rinpoche on the translation of the sadhana and was also
the editor of Meditalion in Action)! In preparation for the publication of
The Colleaed Works, Richard kin dly contributed info rmation about their
journey and the circumstances under which the sadhana was received:
It would be a sad thing if The Collected Works were published without
including at least an excerpt from T lie SadJrnna of Maham•udra. Along
with he Shambh ala teachings, it seems to be the quintessential expression
of his [Trungpa Rinpoche' s] enlightened mind and was
openly recognized as such by both Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and H. H.
Di1go Khyentse. The Vidyadhara [Chogyam Tnmgpa] him self
wanted it to be propagated and practiced widely and without restric-
S. Traditionally, when a rerma rext is written our, a spec.ial mark or sign is placed ar the
end of each line of cexr. T he terma marks have been omirr.ed from the excerpt from Tiu:
Sadluma of Mal1aw11dra t.hat appears in Volw11e Pive.
9. See the introduction to Volume One for Richard Arthure's comments on the editing
of Mediuu:ion in Action.
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tion, and he gladly shared it even with acquaintances, such as
Thomas Merton , who were not Buddhjst. 10
Before going into retreat at Taktsang, Trungpa Rinpoche and I
traveled with Khyenrse Rinpoche by jeep from Bhutan to Sikkim in
order to spend some time with H . H. the sixteenth Karmapa. At
[Trungpa] Rinpoche's request, the Karmapa performed the Karma
Pakshi empowerment for us. [mm.ediately, the Vidyadbara, with my
assistance, set to work to prepare an English language translation of
he Karma Pakshi sadhana .11 (There exisrs a photograph- tactfully
suppressed for general purposes- of the two of us sittin g side by side
in the guest house at Rumtek smoking cigarettes and working on this
translation.) It was to be my daily practice at Taktsang. It is unlikely
that this trans.la tion has survived.
On our return ro Bhutan, we received the Dorje Trolo [the wrathful
aspect of Guru Rinpoche, in which he manifested at Taktsang before
entering T ibet] ei:npowermen t from Dilg Khyentse in a very
informal setting, with just a handful of people present in Khyeotse
Rinpoche's tiny bedroom. Then we went up to Taktsang, traveling
on horseback and then on foot up the steep trail, to begin our retreat.
Once there, my morning practice was the Karma Pakshi sadhana. At
noon l would go to Tnmgpa Rinpoche's room and we would have
lunch toge ther. In the afternoon I would sit with Rinpocbe in the
main shrine room while he performed a Dorje Trolo feast practice,
tormas and butter lamps having been prepared by a Bhutanese monk
and a Tibetan yogi who were students of Di.lgo Khyenrse. We would
share a light meal in the early even ing and generally stay up late talking.
A principal topic of our wide-ranging discussions was how to
create an enlightened society, wbat form it would take, etc., Rinpoche
favoring a combination of democracy and enlightened monarchy.
The idea of the delek12 system was first proposed during these
10. Tt was during the 1968 visit to Asia that Rinpoche met Thomas Merton, shortly before
Merton's untimely death .
11. Karma Pakshi (1203- 1282) was the second Karmapa. He was invited to Chjna by
Prince Kublai Khan and by his rival and older brother, Mongk.a Khan. When Hs Hoh•
ness the sixteenth K.armapa made his second visit to the United States in 1976, Trungpa
Rin.poche asked hjm to perform the Karma Pakshi abh.isheka as a blessing for all of Rinpoche's
students, which he did.
12. Dekk is a Tib tan word that m.:ans "auspicious happines ." Chogyam Trungpa used
it to refer to creating a system of governance that fosters peace and good communication
within the meditation cenrers he established. The discussion here is of the genesis of the
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INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME FIVE
discussions. A young Australian woman traveler, Lorraine, showed
up with a copy of Erich Prom.m's The Sane Society in her backpack.
We devoured it. Rinpoche had me write a synopsis of the main ideas
in it to add fuel to our discussions.
Towards the end of our retreat, The Sadltana of Maltamudra arose
in Rinpoche's mind, and the main part of it was written down very
quickly, in one or two days. Several more days were spent in refining
and polishing. We began translating it into English almost immediately,
although most of the work was done after we had come down
the mountain from Taktsang and were staying in a guest house belonging
to the Queen's mother om the outskirts of Thimphu. Here's
how the process worked, more or less (and you should understand
that I don't speak or read Tibetan): Word by word and phrase by
phrase Rinpoche would explain the meaning to me, as far as his vocabulary
allowed. Prom those basic building blocks of meaning, it
became possible to construct the English language version of the sadhana.
I tried to create something that would transmit the dharma in
a powerful and poetic way, utiilizing the natural cadences and
rhythms of spoken English. For example, Rinpoche would say something
like: "All ... namtltok is thoughts ... disappear .... Shunyata
... like a bird in the sky, doesn't make, how would you say, footprints?-
not like a horse or man walking in snow, but same idea."
And this, after a few tries, would give rise to: "All thoughts vanish
into emptiness, like the imprint of a bird in the sky."U Later, I saw
that same simile translated as "like the traceless path of a bird in the
sky," which I think is pretty good. I chose the word imprint because
it gives the echo or faint suggestion of footprint, so carries the resonance
of that image into the dimeJ1sion of space.
Perhaps the Dakinis inspired our work together. Rinpoche
idea of the delek system in 1968. Trungpa Rinpoche did not actually intl'Odi1ce deleks
until 198r. At that time, he suggested that people in the Buddhist communities he worked
witb should organize themselves into ddeks, or groups. con~isting of about rwenry or
thirty families, based on the neighborhoods in which they lived. Each neighborhood or
small group was a delek and its members, tbe delekpas. l!ach delek would elect a leader,
the dekyong- the " protector of happiness"-by a process of consensus for which Rinpoche
coined the phrase "spontaneous insight." The dekyongs were then organized into
the Dekyong Council, which would meet and make decisions affecting their dclcks and
make recommendations to the administration of Vajraclhatu, the international organization
he founded, about larger issues.
13. This line is not part of the excerpt printed in Volume Five.
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seemed ro think they were taking an active interest, at least. While
we were staying in that guesc house, tremendous rainstorms and
floods caused lan dslides and destroyed roads and bridges so ch ar we
were unable ro travel. Rinpoche commented: 'This is the action of
the Dakinis, making sure we don't leave until the t ra11Slation is finished.
"'"
Richard's commentary provides quite a lot of new information about
the circumstances surroun ding the " discovery" of The Sadhana of Maha mu.
dra. It has previously not been widely known that Chogyam Trungpa
received. both the Karma Pakshi and Dorje Tro lo empowerments prior
to entering retreat at Taktsang. He undoubte dly would have received
these abhishekas earlier, while studyi.ng i.n Tib et, but having them "refres
hed .. in hi mind may have had ome influence on what occurred at
Takt ang. The e two guru , visualized a yidams or vajrayana nontheistic
deities, are combined as one central figure in The Sadhana of Maliamudra,
thus unifying the energies of their respective lineages, the Kagyu and the
Nyingma. We also see in Richard's reminiscences that Trungpa Rin poche's
facili ty with the English language was still limited i.n 1968. It is,
therefore, remarkable both how, ccurately the translation of the sadhana
captured the spirit and meaning of the original T ib etan (the translation
used today is virtually the same as tihe original)" and also how fast Rinpoche's
grasp of the language developed after r968. We have recordings
of him teaching in America as early as r970, and his sentence structure
and vocabulary are nothing like the fragmentary approach that Richard
reports less than two years earlier. His remarks complement Trungpa
Rinpoche's own description of the retreat, which appears in "Jo ini.ng Energy
and Space." Richard sets the outer scene for us; Rinpoche describes
more of the inner experiences he had, empty at the beginning, charged
with energy and power at the end.
Although this article and the attendant excerpt are brief, they deserve
significant commentary, because The Sadlum.a of Mahamudra had such a
14. Letter from Richard Art:hure to Carolyn Rose Gimian, D cember 2001.
15 . The Nalanda Translation omrnittee did prepare a more literal translation of The
Sadltana of .Ma.ha11111.Jra in 1990, for students' use in srudying the text. The beginning sections
ofthis tran lation were done with Chogyam Trungpa. He himself felt that the origi•
nal n•anslation captured something that would be lost by making eKtemive changes. The
NTC's work is available to inreresred sruden r.s.
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INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME FIVE
huge impact on Trungpa Rinpoche's development as a teacher and on
the whole thrust of his teaching in tihe West. ln a sense, the most articulate
presentation of spiritual materialism and the most profound understanding
of how to vanquish it are presented in this sadhana. In this, as
well as other areas of his teaching, 'frungpa Rinpoche first had the main
realization, full and complete within itself, received almost in an instant.
He then spent years sharing that understanding with others. This was
also true with his propagation of the Shambhala teachings, which were
heralded by his receiving another terma text, The Golden Sun of the Great
Ea.st, well before he began to lecture publicly on the Shambhala path of
warriorship. This approach is, in face, quite orthodox. T he Buddha first
became enlightened; only some weeks later did he begin to teach. Similarly,
Chogyam Trungpa discovered. the heart teachings of his lineagethe
ecumenical tradition of Ri-me- in Taktsang in r968. He spent the
next two decades sharing that realization with sentient beings.
As Richard also points out in his letter, after discovering and translating
The Sadhana of Mahamudra, Trungpa Rinpoche was delighted to share
th is practice with anyone who mig'ht be interested. When he returned
to England, his students there took up the practice of the sadhana immediately.
In an unpublished memoir, Rinpoche's wife, Diana Mukpo, describes
the practice of the sadhana at Sam ye Ling, Rinpoche's meditation
center in Scotland: "When I was visiting Samye Ling with my mother in
1969, Rinpoche had only recently returned from this trip to Bhutan.
Now, in addition ro traditional Tibetan practices, students at Samye Ling
chanted an English translation of The Sadltana of Maltanmdra, crudely
printed on coloured paper."
Once he arrived in America in 1970, in spite of his insistence on the
sitting practice of meditation as the main discipline, Trungpa Rinpoche
encouraged students to gather together and read the sadhana on the new
and full moon. T his practice continues to the present day. During Trungpa
Rinpoche's lifetime, he conferred the formal empowerment, or abhisheka,
for chis sadhana twice that we know of: in India in 1968 and slightly
later in England. In c982, His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche requested that
Trungpa Rinpoche write down the abhisheka text, which he had spontaneously
composed when he gave ch e transmissions years before. He did
not accomplish this before he died, but Khyentse Rinpoche, who had a
very close connection to Trungpa Rinpoche and to his students, completed
both the abhisheka and the feast liturgy in r990. Rinpoche's eldest
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son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, who inherited the leadership of the
Shambhala Buddhist community in I990, has conferred this abhisheka in
a number of ceremonies, beginning in r993. Several thousand students,
both senior students and recent meditators, have taken part in these
events. Carried out of a lonely retreat in a cave in Bhutan, the lineage of
transmission has traveled far and grown quite large in less than three
decades.
In The Sadhana of Mahamudra, the seed syllable HUM plays a major role
in invoking the power of sanity to overcome the forces of materialism in
the world. The next offering in Volume Five is "HuM: An Approach to
Mantra," a short article on the mantra HUM, which was originally published
in 1972 in Garuda II: Working with Negativity. As he so often does,
Chogyam Trungpa begins his disclllssion by dispelling preconceptions.
That is, he first tells the reader wha1: mantra practice is not. It is not, he
informs us, "a magical spell used in order to gain psychic powers for
selfish purposes, such as accumulation of wealth, power over others, and
destruction of enemies." He explains that the genuine usage of mantra
arises from an understanding of the t eachings of the Buddha on the four
marks of existence: impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and egolessness.
Mantra is the invocation of eg,oless or nontheistic energies of wisdom
and insight. He also distinguishes the Buddhist understanding of
mantra from its usage in Hindu tantra, explaining that the divinities invoked
in Buddhist tantra are not external but rather represent "aspects
of the awakened state of mind." Trungpa Rinpoche then describes a
number of ways in which the mantra HlfM has been used. It was employed
by Guru Padmasambhava "to subdue the force of the negative
environment created by minds poisoned with passion, aggression, and
ignorance." For beginning meditators, he suggests that chanting the sacred
music of HUM can quiet the mind and ease the force of irritating
thoughts. For advanced meditators, he states that the syllable HUM is a
means of developing the wisdom of the five buddha families, innate wisdoms
arising from emptiness, which one finds within oneself, not somewhere
in the external world. He also describes HUM as the "sonorous
sound of silence" and as " that state of meditation when awareness
breaks our of the limits of ego." F1inally, he describes the relationship
of the mantra HUM to the Vajrakilaya Mandala, i.n which the power of
egolessness is visualized as a dagger that pierces through the seductions
of ego.
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When this article was reviewed for inclusion in The Collected Works,
an early, unpublished version was uncovered. In most respects, it was
very similar to the final form in which the article appeared in Garuda 11.
However, the closing paragraph of the original was omitted when it was
published. Here, Trungpa Rinpoche suggests that those who practice The
Sadluma of Mahamudra would benefit from studying this essay on the
mantra HUM. This paragraph has been restored in the version that appears
here.
Next in Volume Five we have " Explanation of the Vajra Guru Mantra,"
an article never before published, which deals with the mantra that
invokes Guru Rinpoche, or Padmasambhava. Here, Chogyam Trungpa
describes mantra as creating "a living environment of energy." This article
was probably written while Chogyam Trungpa was still in England or
shortly a fter he arrived in the United!. Scates. He translates each syllable of
the mantra (if it is translatable) and then discusses the meaning of each
syllable in some detail. There is a very pithy but penetrating discussion
of the guru principle, which presents three aspects of one's devotion and
relationship t o the teacher. First, one sees the guru as the superior
teacher to whom one opens and surrenders oneself completely. Second,
the guru manifests as the spiritual &iend , because- as Rinpoche points
out- "you must be able not only to surrender but to communicate."
Trungpa Rinpoche relates this aspect of devotion to the meeting of two
minds: "Your mind is open to the open space and the guru's mind is
open to the open space. In this way, your mind becomes one with chat
of the teacher- both are inseparable from unconditioned space." Finally,
Rinpoche talks about the guru as e nvironment, which is seeing occurrences
in life as the manifestation of the energy of the teacher. One
learns to appreciate the wisdom of the phenomenal world and to see life
situations as messages that embody wisdom. If the practitioner ignores
the meaning of experiences, then a stronger message, in the form of
chaos, will provide the feedback chat one has lost touch with "the life
situation as reacher." Recognizing this affords the student an opportunity
for furth er opening and communication. The result is that one develops
compassion, the genuine ability to communicate with and help
others, as well as the power of siddhi, which is sometimes translated as
"magical power" or the ability co pe rform miracles. Here, Trungpa Rinpoche
suggests that siddhi is a situation that develops unexpectedly,
a sudden unforeseen coming together of circumstances. He ends the
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article with the suggestion that the real miracle is the "power of compassion,
ultimate communication."
The next offering is Rinpoche's foreword to The Torch of Certainty and
the interview with Chogyam Trungpa that appeared in the introduction
to the book. The foundation practices that are discussed here are often
referred to as the four extraordinary or special preliminaries. They are a
practitioner's first fo rmal in troduction to visualization practice and other
distinctly tantric aspects of Buddhist yoga and are prerequisites for more
advanced meditation practices in the vajrayana. The foundations include
108,000 repetitions of the refuge formula combined with 108,000 prostrations,
108,000 repetitions of the Vajrasattva mantra, and 108,000 mandala
offerings, concluding with a guru yoga recitation. T hese ngondro practices
are a process of surrendering, purifying, offering, and identifying
with the lineage by developing longing for the teacher and the teachings.
For a snident who has connected with the preceding teachings on
lineage and devotion, the ngondro practices offer the way to actually
embark on the path. Although sometimes they are given to students
with no other formal background, Trungpa Rinpoche makes it clear that,
from his point of view, these practices are only appropriate or helpful for
students who have experience in taming and training the mind, which
are accomplished through the sitting practice of meditation.
The next two articles, "The Practicing Lineage" and "The Mishap
Lineage" are edited versions of the first two talks in "The Line of the
Trungpas," a seminar taught by Chogyam Trungpa at Karme Choling
meditation center in Vermont in 1975. Both of these talks present an introduction
to the Kagyi.i lineage. It was only in the later talks from the
seminar, which remain unpublished, that Rinpoche talked more specifically
about the teachers in his particular lineage. In "The Practicing Lineage"
he talks about the literal meaning of Kagya as "the lineage of the
sacred word," but he focuses on the lineage as drubgya, or "the practicing
lineage," as it became known during the time of Milarepa. The importance
of having a teacher and the necessity of transcending spirinial materialism
and ego-dinging are stressed: "The practicing lineage teaches
us chat we have to get rid of those ego-centered conceptualized notions
of the grandiosity of our development. If we are truly involved with spirituality,
we are willing to let go of trying to witness our own enlightenment."
In "The Mishap Lineage," Trungpa Rinpoche talks about how
the Kagyi.i have always loved desolate mountain peaks and practicing in
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wild and sometimes haunted places. This, he suggests, has made them
adept at conquering extreme, foreign territory of all kinds, and thus they
have long been known for spreading the dharma in foreign lands. That
love of harsh extremes is combined in the Kagyu lineage with profound
gentleness and devotion. He also describes how constant mishaps are
welcomed by the Kagyti practitioner as further fuel to spark awareness.
This also harks back to the story of Rinpoche's escape from the Chinese
at the Brahmaputra River.
"Teachings on the Tulku Principle" is a brief article on the history
and meaning of reincarnation and the Tibetan practice of realized teachers
taking rebirth in successive incarnations. Such a teacher is called a
tulku, which literally means "emanation body." The first Karmapa, the
head of the Karma Kagyu lineage to which Chogyam Trungpa belonged,
was in fact the first tulku to be recognized in Tibet. "Teachings on the
Tulku Principle" clarifies that a tulku docs not represent the continuation
of ego or self, but rather expresses the continuity of awake mind,
generated by compassion, from one incarnation to the next.
The final group of articles in Volume Five presents three quite distinct
discussions of the life of Milarepa. As is the case with his lectures
on the life and teachings of Marpa, Trungpa Rinpoche's seminars on Milarepa
have not yet been edited for publication. One of the first teachings
he gave in America was a sixteen-talk seminar on the significance of Milarepa's
life. Over the next ten years, he gave many other teachings on
Milarepa, including a long seminar titled "The Yogic Songs of Milarepa"
at the Naropa Institute in the mid-197os. We can hope that this material
will eventually be made available. For now, the three articles in cluded
in The Collected Works give us a good indication of the richness of Rinpoche's
insights into Jetsun Milarepa's teachings.
Milarepa is undoubtedly the most famous and beloved yogi of Tibet.
Students from all lineages study his spiritual songs. Trungpa Rinpoche
pays tribute to both the rugged quality of Milarepa's realization and its
simplicity. Milarepa's austere life in mountain caves and his deep devotion
tO his guru, Marpa, epitomize the qualities that Trungpa Rinpoche
points to in "T he Mis hap Lineage" as the core of the Kagyu sensibility.
"Milarepa: A Warrior's Life" is a previously unpublished article that
was prepared in 1978 as a text to accompany a calendar of reproductions
of T ibetan thangkas, or scroll paintings, that depicted scenes from Milarepa's
life. The calendar was never published, so the article was filed
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away. It was one of the first articles that I worked on with Rinpoche. I
uncovered it tucked away in some files in the Shambhala Archives while
l was in the process of searching for material for inclusion in The Collected
Works. It presents the basic events in Milarepa's life story, with commentary
on their significance, making the ocher two articles easier to follow
for readers unfamiliar with the story. The careful reader will notice that
each of the three articles differs in some small respects in presenting the
details of Milarepa's life. There are a number of versions of his namthar,
or spiritual biography, and quite probably Chogyam Trungpa consulted
different texts at different times. In working with me on "Milarepa: A
Warrior's Life," Rinpoche suggested that I consult Lobsang Lhalungpa's
translation of The Life of Milarepa.
The second article is simply called "M ilarepa: A Synopsis." It too
emerged from the files when l was searching for material for The Collected
Works and has never been published before. It presents a series of
scenes from Mi.larepa's life, with little commentary on their significance.
The writing is quite vivid, however. Excerpts from a number of Milarepa's
songs are included, based on the translation of The Hundred Thousand
Songs of Milarepa by Carma C. C. Ch ang. Although it was impossible to
definitively confirm this, it is likely that this article is actually an early
treatment prepared by Chogyam Trungpa for a movie on the life of Milarepa,
which he began filming in the early 1970s. He and several of his
students, including two filmmakers from Los Angeles- Johanna Demetrakas
and Baird Bryant-traveled tO Sweden to film some exquisite
thangkas of the life of Milarepa, which were to be featured in the movie.
More information about the film itself- which was also to be an exploration
of the qualities of the five buddha families-appears in the introduction
to Volume Seven, which presents Rinpoche's teachings on art and
the artistic process.
Volume Five closes with "The Art of Milarepa," which originally appeared
in Garuda II. The title is somewhat misleading in that the article
has little to do with Milarepa's artistic expression- his songs- in and of
themselves and more co do with his art of life. The opening part of the
article is a discussion of how the secret practice of Buddhist yoga evolved
in India, especially in the ninth century in the great universities of Nalanda
and Vikramashila. The connection that Marpa (Milarepa's main
teacher) had to this t radition is also discussed. In this art icle, one sees
Trungpa Rinpoche's brilliant insight into Milarepa's journey through life,
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the obstacles he encountered, and his final attainment. Throughout, Rinpoche
brings together immense appreciation for Milarepa as a highly developed
person on the one hand, with a down-to-earth insight into the
humanness and ordinary quality of his practice on the other.
After he met his guru, Milarepa lived an austere, ascetic life and spent
many years in solitary retreat in caves in the wilderness of Tibet. His
lifestyle might seem distant from that of most people, especially in this
modern age. Yet Trungpa Rinpoche makes Milarepa's experience accessible
by demystifying it, while maintaining his tremendous appreciat ion
for the attainment of his forefather. He tells us that Milarepa remained
an ascetic simply because "that physical situation had become part of his
makeup. Since he was true to himself, he had no relative concept of
other living styles and did not compare himself to others. Although he
taught people with many different lifestyles, he had no desire to convert
them." Milarepa's asceticism is treated here as an ordinary but very sacred
experience, one that really does nor have much to do with embracing
austerity per se. As Rinpoche concludes, "Simplicity is applicable to
the situation of transcending neurotic mind by using domestic language.
It becomes profound without pretense, and chis naturally provokes rhe
actual practice of meditation."
It seems fitting that Vol.ume Five should end with these three articles
celebrating the life of Milarepa. Although outwardly his was a life
marked by the trappings of a secular existence, Chogyam Trungpa, like
Milarepa, gave up everything familiar and cozy to bring the dharma of
his lineage from Tibet to North America. He, like his forefathers, was
rugged and direct, yet supremely sweet and gentle, and marked by an
almost unbearable sadness, which became the expression of bliss. As he
says in "The Doha of Sadness," one of his songs in The Rain of Wisdom:
You, my only father guru, have gone far away,
My vajra brothers and sisters have wandered to the ends of
the earth.
Only I, Chogyam, the Little chi.Id, am left.
Still, for the teachings of the profound and brilliant practice
lineage,
I am willing to surrender my life in sadness.
In many thangkas, Milarepa is shown holding his hand up to his right
ear. It is often said that he is listening to himself singing his own songs
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of realization. But I wonder if he is not listening to hear who will pick
up the song of dharma that Trungpa Rinpoche sang in the West. Who
will carry forward that melody? The Kagyu gurus are waiting to hear
that song sung completely in a foreign tongue, echoing the same wisdom
they have guarded with their lives for so many, many years. Let us aspire
to join them in their song!
CA.ROLYN ROSE G!MIAN
Febniary 6, 2002
Trident Mountain House
Tatamagouche Mountain, Nova Scotia
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CRAZY WISDOM
E DIT E D BY
SHERAB CHODZIN KOHN
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Editor's Foreword
THE VENERABLE CHOGYAM TR\JNGPA RINPOCHE gave two seminars
on "crazy wisdom" in December 1972. Each lasted about a
week. The first took place in an otherwise unoccupied resort hotel in the
Tetons near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. T he other happened in an old
town hall cum gymnasium in the Vermont village of Barnet, just down
the road from the meditation center founded by Trungpa Rinpoche now
called Kanne Choling, then known as Tail of the T iger.
Rinpoche had arrived on this continent about two and a half years
previously, in the spring of 1970. He !had found an America bubbling with
social change, animated by factors like hippyism, LSD, and the spiritual
supermarket. In response co his ceaseless outpouring of teachings in a
very direc t, lucid, and down-to-earth style, a body of committed students
had gathered, and more were arriving all the time. In the fall of 1972, he
made his first tactical pause, taking a three-month retreat in a secluded
house in the Massachusetts woods.
This was a visionary three months. Rinpoche seemed to contemplate
the direction his work in America would take and the means at hand for
its fulfillment. Important new plans were formulated. The last night of
the retreat, he did not sleep. He told the few students present to use
whatever was on hand and prepare a formal banquet. He himself spent
hours in preparation for the banquet and did not appear until two in
the morning- very beautifully groomed and dressed and buzzing
with extraordinary energy. Conversation went on into the night. At
one point, Rinpoche talked for two hours without stopping, giving an
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extremely vivid and detailed account of a d1•eam he had had the night
before. He left the retreat with the ,dawn light and traveled all that day.
That evening, still not having slept, he gave the first talk of the "Crazy
Wisdom" seminar at Jackson Hole .. It is possible that he went off that
morning with a sense of beginning a new phase in his work. Certainly
elements of such a oew phase are described in the last talk of the seminar
at Jackson Hole.
After the first Vajradhatu Seminary in r973 (planned during the r972
retreat), Trungpa Rinpoche's teaching style would change. His presentation
would become much more methodical, geared toward guiding his
students through the successive stages of the path. The "Crazy Wisdom"
seminars thus belonged to the end of the introductory period of Rinpoche's
teaching in North America, during which, by contrast, he
showed a spectacular abili ty to convey all levels of the teachings at once.
During this introductory phase, there was a powerful fruitional atmosphere,
bursting with the possibilities of the sudden path. Such an atmosphere
prevailed as he made the basic teachings and advanced teachings
into a single flow of profound instruction, while at the same time fi ercely
lopping away the omnipresent tentacles of spiritual materialism.
It might be helpful to look at these two seminars for a moment in
the context of the battle against spilritual materialism. Though they had
been planned in response to a request for teaching on the eight aspects
of Padmasambhava, Trungpa Rinpoche had slightly shifted the emphasis
and given the headline to crazy wisdom. His "experienced" students, as
well as the ones newly arriving, had a relentless appet ite for definite spiritual
techniques or principles they could latch onto and identify with.
The exotic iconography of the eight: aspects of Padmasambhava, if presented
too definitely, would have been bloody meat in the water for
spiritually materialistic sharks. This may partly explain why a tidy hagiography
of the eight aspects, with complete and consistent detail, was
avoided, and the raw, ungarnished insight of crazy wisdom was delivered
instead.
Some editing of this material from the original spoken presentation has
been necessary for the sake of basic readability. However, nothing has
been changed in the order of presen1tation, and nothing has been left ouc
in the body of the talks. A great effo rt has been made not to cosmeticize
Trungpa Rinpoche's language or alter his diction purely for the sake of
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ED ITOR'S FOREWORD
achieving a conventionally presenta'lble tone. Hopefully, the reader will
enjoy those sentences of his that ru11 between our mental raindrops and
touch us where ordinary conceptual clarity could not. T he reader will
also hopefully appreciate that passages that remain dark on one reading
may become luminously clear on another.
Here, we have the mighty roaring of a great lion of dharma. May it
put to flight the heretics and bandits of hope and fear. For the benefit of
all beings, may his wishes continue to be fulfilled.
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CRAZY WISDOM SEMINAR I
Jackson Hole, 1972
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Pema Gyalpo (Padmasambliava).
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ONE
Padmasambhava and Spiritual
Materialism
THE SUBJECT that we are going to deal with is an extraordinarily
difficult one. It is possible tha1t some people might get ell.traordinarily
confused. Or people might ve.ry well gee something out of it. We
will be discussing Guru Rinpoche, or as he is often called in the West,
Padmasambhava; we will be considering his nature and the various iifestyles
he developed in the process of working with students. This subject
is very subtle, and some aspects of it are very difficult to put into words.
I hope nobody will regard this humble attempt of mine as a definitive
portrayal of Padmasambhava.
To begin with, we probably need some basic introduction to who
Padmasambhava was; to how he fits into the context of the buddhadharma
(the Buddhist teachings), in general; and co how he came to be
so admired by Tibetans in particular.
Padmasambhava was an Indian teacher who brought the complete
teachings of the buddhadharma to Tibet. He remains our source of inspiration
even now, here in the West. We have inherited his teachings, and
from that point of view, I think we could say that Padmasambhava is
alive and well.
I suppose the best way to characterize Padmasambhava for people
with a Western or Christian cultural outlook is ro say that he was a saint.
We are going to discuss the depth of his wisdom and his lifestyle, his
skillful way of relating with students. The students he had to deal with
were Tibetans, who were extraordinarily savage and uncultured. He was
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invited to come to Tibet, but the Tibetans showed very little understanding
of how to receive and welcome a great guru from another part
of the world. They were very stubborn and very matter-of-fact- very
earthy. They presented all kinds of o bstacles to Padmasambhava's activity
in Tibet. However, the obstacles did not come from the Tibetan people
alone, but also from differences in climate, landscape, and the social
situation as a whole. In some ways, Padmasambhava's situation was
very similar to our situation here. Americans are hospitable, but on the
other hand, there is a very savage and rugged side to American culture.
Spiritually, American culture is not conducive to just bringing out the
brilliant light and expecting it to be accepted.
So there is an analogy here. In terms of that analogy, the Tibetans
are the Americans and Padmasambhava is himself.
Before getting into details concerning Padmasambhava's life and
teachings, I think it would be helpful to discuss the idea of a saint in the
Buddhist tradition. The idea of a s aint in the Christian tradition and
the idea of a saint in the Buddhist tradition are somewhat conflicting. In
the Christian tradi tion, a saint is generally considered someone who has
direct communication with God, who perhaps is completely intoxicated
with the Godhead and because of th is is able to give out certain reassurances
to people. People can look to the saint as an example of higher
consciousness or higher development.
The Buddhist approach to spirituality is quite different. It is nontheistic.
It does not have the principle of an external divinity. Thus, there is
no possibility of getting promises from the divinity and bringing them
from there down to here. T he Buddhist approach to spirituality is connected
with awakening within oneself rather than with relating to something
external. So the idea of a saint as someone who is able to expand
himself to relate to an external principle, get something out of it, and
then share that with others is difficult or nonexistent from the Buddhist
point of view.
A saint in the Buddhist context- for example, Padmasambhava or a
great being like the Buddha himself- is someone who provides an example
of the fact that completely ordinary, confused human beings can
wake themselves up; they can put themselves together and wake themselves
up through an accident of life of one kind or another. The pain ,
the suffering of all kinds, the misery, and the chaos that are part of life
begins to wake them, shake them. Having been shaken, they begin to
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question: "Who am I? What am I? How is it that all these things are
happening?" Then they go further and realize that there is something in
them that is asking these questions, something that is, in fact, intelligent
and not exactly confused.
This happens in our own lives. We feel a sense of confusion- it seems
to be confusion- but that confusion brings out something that is worth
exploring. The questions that we ask in the midst of our confusion are
potent questions, questions that we really have. We ask, "Who am I?
What am I? What is this? What is life?" and so forth. Then we explore
further and ask, " [n fact, who on earth asked that question? Who is that
person who asked the question, 'Who am I?' Who is the person who
asked, 'What is?' or even 'What is what is?' " We go on and on with this
questioning, further and further inward. In some way, this is nontheistic
spirituality in its fullest sense. External inspirations do not stimulate us
to model ourselves on further external situations. Rather the external
situations that exist speak to us of ou.r con.fusion, and this makes us think
more, think further. Once we have begun to do that, then of course
there is the other problem: once we have found out who and what we
are, how do we apply what we have learned to our living situation? How
do we put it into practice?
There seem to be two possible approaches here. One is trying to live
up to what we would like to be. The other is trying to live what we are.
Trying to Jive up to what we wouldl like to be is like pretending we are
a divine being or a realized person, or whatever we might like to call the
model. When we realize what is wrong with us, what our weakness is,
what our problems and neuroses are, the automatic temptation is to try
to act just the opposite, as though w e have never heard of such a thing
as our being wrong or confused. We tell ourselves, "Think positive! Act
as though you're okay." Although we know that something is wrong
with us on the level of the actual lliving situation, on the kitchen-sink
level, we regard that as unimportant. "Let's forget those 'evil vibrations,'"
we say. "Let's think the other way. Let's pretend to be good."
This approach is known in the Bu ddhist tradition as spiritual materialism,
which means not being realistic, or to use hippie j argon, spacing
out. "Let's forget the bad and pretend to be good." We could classify as
spiritual materialism any approach- such as Buddhist, Hin.du, Jewish, or
Christian- that provides us with techniques to try to associate with the
good, the better, the best- or the uLtimately good, the divine.
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When we begin associating ourselves with the good, it makes us
happy. We feel full of delight. We think, "At last I've found an answer!"
That answer is that the only thing to do is regard ourselves as free already.
Then, having established the position chat we are free already, we
just have ro let all things flow.
Then we add a further touch to reinforce our spiritual materialism:
everything that we do not know or did not understand in connection
with our spiritual quest we connect with descriptions in various scriptures
about that which is beyond mind, beyond words, ineffable- the
ineffable Self, or whatever. We associate our own lack of understanding
about what is going on with us with those unspoken, inexpressible
things. This way our ignorance is made into the greatest discovery of all.
We can connect this "great discovetry" with a doctrinal supposition; for
example, " the savior" or some interpretation of the scriptures.
Whereas before, we didn't know anything at all, now we "know"
something that we actually don't know. There is something ahead of us
now. We cannot describe it in term.s of words, concepts, and ideas, bur
we have discovered that, to begin w ith, it is a matter of twisting ourselves
into the good. So we have this one thing to start with: we can
directly and deliberately translate our confusion as being something that
is not confused. We do this just because we are seeking pleasure, spiritual
pleasure. In doing it, we affirm that the pleasure we are seeking is of an
unknowable nature, because we actually have no idea what kind of spiritual
pleasure we are going to get out of this maneuver. And all the spiritual
interpretations of the scriptures. referring ro the unknowable can be
applied to the fact that we do not know what to do spiritually. Nevertheless,
we are definitely involved in spiritual conviction now, because we
have suppressed our original doubts about who we are and what we
are- our feeling that perhaps we might not be anything. We have suppressed
that; we may nor even know about it anymore.
Having suppressed this embarrassment of ego that provided us with
stepping-stones to the unknown, the nature of which we did nor understand,
we end up with two games o.f confusion going on: a game of the
unknown and a game of the transcendental unknown. Both of these are
part of spiritual materialism. We do not know who or what we are, bur
we do know that we would like robe someone or something. We decide
to go ahead with what we would like to be even though we do not know
what that is. That is the first game. T hen on top of that, in connection
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with being something, we would also like to know that there is something
about the world or the cosmos that corresponds ro this "something"
that we are. We have a sense of finding this something that we
want to know, but we actually can't understand it, so that becomes the
transcendental unknown. Since we can't understand it, we say, "Let's
make that bigger and more gigantic confusion into the spirituality of the
infiniteness of the Godhead," or something like that.
This should give us some understanding of spiritual materialism. The
danger of spiritual materialism is that under its influence we make all
kinds of assumptions. First, there are the domestic or personal-level assumptions,
which we make because we want to be happy. Second, there
are the spiritual assumptions that are made because that transcendent al,
gigantic, greater discovery is left mysterious. This brings further great
assumptions: we do not know what we are actually going co achieve by
achieving that unknown thing, but nevertheless, we g ive it some vague
description, such as "being absorbed into the cosmos." And since nobody
has yet gone that far, if anybody quest ions this d iscovery of "absorption
into the cosmos," then we just make up further logic or look
for reinforcement from the scriptures or other authorities.
The result of all this is that we en d up confirming ourselves and confirming
that the experience we are proclaiming is a true experience. Nobody
can question it. At some stage, there's no room left for questioning
at all. Our whole outlook becomes c:ompletely established with no room
left at all for questioning. This is what we could call achieving egohood,
as opposed to achieving enlightenment. At that point, if I would like co
practice my aggression and passion on you and you don't accept that,
then that's your fault. You do not understand the ineffable spirituality,
so you are at fa ult. The only way left for me to help you is to reduce
you to a shrunken head, to take out your brain and heart. You become
a mere puppet under my command.
That is a rough portrait of spiritual materialism. It is the first of the two
possible approaches: trying to live up to what you would like to be. Now
let's talk about the second possible approach, that of trying to live what
you are.
This possibility is connected with seeing our confusion, or misery and
pain, but not making those discoveiries into an answer. Instead, we explore
further and further and further without looking for an answer. It
is a process of working with ourselves, with our lives, with our psycho!-
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ogy, without looking for an answer !but seeing things as they are- seeing
what goes on in our heads directly and simply, absolutely literally. If we
can undertake a process like that, then there is a tremendous possibility
that our confusion-the chaos and neurosis that go on in our mindsmight
become a further basis for investigation. Then we look further
and further and further. We don't make a big point or an answer out of
any one thing. For example, we might think that because we have discovered
one particular thing that is wrong with us, that must be it, that
must be the problem, that must be the answer. No. We don't fixate on
that, we go further. "Why is that the case?" We look further and further.
We ask, "'Why is this so? Why is theire spirituality? Why is there awakening?
Why is there this moment of Jrelief? Why is there such a thing as
discovering the pleasure of spirituality? Why, why, why?" We go on
deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, until we reach the point
where there is no answer. There is not even a question. Both question
and answer die simultaneously at some point. They begin to rub each
other too closely and they short-circuit each other in some way. At that
point, we tend to give up hope of an answer, or of anything whatsoever,
for that matter. We have no more hope, none whatsoever. We are
purely hopeless. We could call this transcending hope, if you would like
to put it in more genteel terms.
The hopelessness is the essence of crazy wisdom. It is hopeless, utterly
hopeless. It is beyond hopelessness. (Of course, it would be possible,
if we tried to turn that hopelessness itself into some kind of solution,
ro become confused again, to say the least.)
The process is one of going further in and in and in without any reference
point of spirituality, without any reference point of a savior, without
any reference point of goodness or badness- without any reference
points whatsoever! Finally, we might reach the basic level of hopelessness,
of transcending hope. T his does not mean we end up as zombies.
We still have all the energies; we have all the fascination of discovery, of
seeing this process unfolding and unfolding and unfolding, going on and
on. This process of discovery automatically recharges itself so that we
keep going deeper and deeper and deeper. T his process of going deeper
and deeper is the process of crazy wisdom, and it is what characterizes a
saint in the Buddhist tradition.
The eight aspects of Padmasambihava that we are going to discuss are
connected with such a process of psychological penetration, of cutting
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through the surface of the psychological realm and then cutting through
a further surface and infinitely funner surfaces down through ever further
depths of further surfaces, deeiPer and deeper. This is the process
we involve ourselves in by discussing Padmasambhava's life, the eight
aspects of Padmasambhava, and crazy wisdom.
In this context, we see that the Buddhist approach to spirituality is
one of ruthlessly cutting through any chance we might have of confirming
ourselves at any particular stage of development on the spiritual
path. When we discover that we have made some progress on the spiritual
path, that discovery of progress is regarded as a hindrance to further
progress. So we don't get a chance to rest, to relax, or to congratulate
ourselves at all. It is a one-shot, ongoingly ruthless spiritual journey. And
that is the essence of Padmasambhava's spirituality.
Padmasambhava had to work witth the Tibetan people of those days.
You can imagine it. A great Indian magician and pandit, a great vidyadhara,
or tanrric master, comes to the Land of Snow, Tibet. The Tibetans
think he is going to teach them some beautiful spiritual teaching about
how to know the essence of the mind. The expectations built up by the
Tibetans are enormous. Padmasamb hava's work is to cut through the
Tibetans' layers and layers of expectations, through all their assumptions
as to what spirituality might be. Fina lly, at the end of Padmasambhava's
mission in T ibet, when he manifested as Dorje Trolo, all those layers of
expectation were completely cut through. The Tibetans began to realize
that spirituality is cmting through h ope and fear as well as being the
sudden discovery of intelligence that goes along with this process.
Student: What is the difference between crazy wisdom and just being
crazy? Some people might want to j ust go on being crazy and confused
and excuse themselves by saying this is crazy wisdom. So what is the
difference?
Tnmgpa Rinpoche: Well, that is what I have been trying to explain
through my whole talk, but let's try again. In the case of ordinary craziness,
we are constantly trying to win the game. We might even try to
turn craziness into a credential of some kind so we can come out ahead.
We might try to magnetize people with passion or destroy them with
aggression or whatever. There's a constant game going on in the mind.
Mind's game- constant strategies going on- might bring us a moment
of relief occasionally, but that relief has co be maintained by further aggression.
That kind of craziness has to maintain itself constantly, on and on.
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In the case of the primordial craziness of crazy wisdom, we do not
permit ourselves to get seduced by passion or aroused by aggression at
all. We relate with these experiences as they are, and if anything comes
up in the midst of that complete ordinariness and begins to make itself
into a big deal, then we cut it down-without any special reference to
what is good and what is bad. Crazy wisdom is just the action of truth.
It cuts everything down. It does not even try to tra nslate falseness into
truthfulness, because that in itself is. corruption. It is ruthless, because if
you want the complete truth, if you want to be completely, wholely
wholesome, then any suggestion th:at comes up of translating whatever
arises into your terms, interpreting it in your terms, is not worth looking
into. On the other hand, the usual crazy approach is completely up for
that kind of thing-for making whatever comes up fit into your thing.
You make it suit what you want to be, suit what you want to see. But
crazy wisdom becomes completely accurate out of the moment of things
as they are. This is the style of action of Padmasambhava.
Student: How does discipline relate to being what you really are? I
thought discipline meant imposing something on yourself.
Trungpa Rinpoclit: The most difficult discipline is to be what you are.
Constantly trying to be what you are not is much easier, because we are
trained to con either ourselves or others, to fit things into appropriate
categories. Whereas if you take all of that away, the whole thing becomes
too irritating, coo boring. There's no room for talking yourself
into anything. Everything is quite simple.
Student: You often make use of your sense of humor in explaining
things. ls sense of humor, the way you use it, the same as crazy wisdom?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Not quite. Sense of humor is still too much slanted
toward the other side, toward hope and fear. It's a dialectic mentality,
whereas crazy wisdom is an overall approach.
Student: Do we relate to hope and fear through the discipline of spiritual
practice?
Trungpa Rinpoche: That's a good point, actually. From this point of
view, anything that is ruthless-anything that knows nothing of hope
and fear- is related to spiritual practice.
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TWO
The Trikaya
WE HAVE DISCUSSED two possible approaches to spirituality: spiritual
materialism and transcending spiritual materialism. Padmasambhava's
way is that of transcending spiritual materialism, of developing
basic sanity. Developing basic sanity is a process of working on ourselves
in which the path itself rather than the attainment of a goal becomes the
working basis. The path itself is what constantly inspires us, rather than,
in the style of the carrot and the donkey, promises about certain achievements
that lie ahead of us. In other words, to make this perfectly clear,
the difference between spiritual mai.terialism and transcending spiritual
materialism is that in spiritual materialism promises are used like a carrot
held up in front of a donkey, luring him into all kinds of journeys; in
transcending spiritual mate1ialism, there is no goal. The goal exists in
every moment of our life situation, in every moment of our spiritual
journey.
In this way, the spiritual journey becomes as exciting and as beautiful
as if we were buddha already. There are constant new discoveries, constant
messages, and constant warnings. There is also constant cutting
down, constant painful lessons-as well as pleasurable ones. The spiritual
journey of transcending spiritual materialism is a complete journey
rather than one that is dependent on an external goal.
It is this completeness of the journey that we are going to discuss in
relation to Padmasambhava's life. This completeness can be described in
terms of certain aspects: it contains basic space, or totality; it contains
energy and play; and it also contains pragmatic application, or dealing
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with life situations as they are. We have three principles there: the totality
as the whole sense of environment on the path, the sense of play on
the path, and the sense of practicality on the path . These are the three
categories that develop.
Before getting into the details of Padmasambhava's eight aspect s, it
would be good to discuss these three principles in terms of how Padmasambhava
manifests them to us as path.
First, we have to look more closely at the nature of the path itself.
The path is our effort, the energy that we put into the daily living situation;
it consists of our trying to work with the daily living situation as
a learning process- whether that sirtuation is creative or destructive or
whatever. If you spill a cup of coffee on your neighbor's cable or if you
just pass someone the salt, it's the same thing. These are the happenings
that occur all the time in our life situat ions. We are constantly doing
things, constantly re lating with things or rejecting things. T here is constant
play. I am not particularly talking about spirituality at this point,
but just daily existence: those events that happen alJ the time in our life
si tuations. That is the path.
The path does not particularly have to be labeled as spiritual. It is just
a simple journey, the journey that contains exchange wit h the reality of
this and that- or with the unreality of it, if you prefer. Relating with
these exchanges- the living process, the being process- is the path. We
may be thinking of our path in terms of attaining enlightenment or of
attaining egohood or whatever. 1n any case, we never get stuck in any
way at all. We might think we get stuck. We might feel bored with life
and so forth; but we never really get bored or really get stuck. The repetitiousness
of life is not really repet it ion. It is composed of constant happenings,
situations constantly evolving, all the time. That is the path.
Prom this point of view, the path is neutral. lt is not biased one way
or the other. There is a constant jou.rney happening, which began at the
time of the basic split. We began co relate in terms of "the ocher," "me,"
"mine," "our," and so on. We began to relate with things as separate
entities. The other is called " them" and this thing is ca.lled "I" or "me."
T he journey began right from there. That was the first creation of samsara
and nirvana. Right at the beginning, when we decided to connect in
some way with the energy of situations, we involved ourselves in a journey,
in the path.
After that, we develop a certain way of relating with the path, and
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the path becomes conditioned toward either worldliness or spirituality.
In other words, spirituality is not really the path, but spirituality is a way
of conditioning our path, our energy.
Conditioning our path happens in terms of the three categories I have
already mentioned. It happens, for example, in terms of the totality of
eA'Perience, the first category. That is one aspect of how we relate to our
path- in terms of the totality of ou:r experience. The path is happening
anyway, then we rela te to it in a certain way, we take a certain attitude
toward it. The path then becomes either a spiritual path or a mundane
path. This is the way we relate to the path; this is how our motivation
begins. And our motivation has the threefold pattern.
In the Buddhist tradition, these three aspects of the path are called
dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and ninnanakaya. The conditioning of the
path happens in terms of those three aspect s. The ongoing process of the
path has a certain total attitude. The journey takes on a pattern that has
an element of total basic sanity in it. This total sanity, or enlightened
quality, is not particularly attractive in the ordinary sense. Tt is the sense
of complete openness that we discussed earlier. It is this complete total
openness that makes us able to transcend hope and fear. With this openness,
we relate to things as they are rather than as we would like them
to be. That basic sanity, that approach transcending hope and fear, is the
attitude of enlightenment.
This attitude is very practical. It does not reject what comes up on
the path, and it does not become attached to what comes up on the path.
It just sees things as they are. So this is total, complete opennesscomplete
willingness to look into whatever arises, to work with it, and
to relate to it as part of the overall p:rocess. This is the dharmakaya mentality
of all-encompassing space, of including everything without bias. It
is a larger way of thinking, a greater way of viewing things, as opposed
to being petty, finicky.
\Ve are taking the dharmakaya approach as long as we do not relate
to the world as our enemy. The world is our opportune situation; it is
what we have to work with. Nothing that arises makes us have to fight
with the world. T he world is the extraordinarily rich situation that is
there; it is full of resources for us. T his basic approach of generosity and
richness is the dharmakaya's approach. It is total positive thinking. This
greater vision is the first attitude in •,elation to the path.
Then we have the second attitude, connected with the sambhoga-
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kaya. Things are open and spacious and workable as we have said, but
there is something more. We also need to relate to the sparkiness, the
energy, the flashes and aliveness that take place within that openness.
That energy, which includes aggression, passion, ignorance, pride, jealousy,
and so forth, also has to be acknowledged. Anything that goes on
in the realm of the mind can be accepted as the glittering light that shines
through the massiveness of the spiritual path. It shines constantly, surprises
us constantly. There is another corner of our being that is so alive,
so energetic and powerful. There are discoveries happening all the time.
That is the sambhogakaya's way of relating with the path.
Thus, the path contains the large.r sense of total acceptance of things
as they are; and the path also contains what we might call fascination
with the exciting discoveries within situations. It is worth repeating here
that we are not putting our experiences into pigeon holes of "virtuous"
or " religious" or "worldly." We are just relating with the things that
happen in our life situations. Those energies and passions that we encounter
on our journey present us with continual discoveries of different
facets of ourselves, different profiles of ourselves. At that point, things
become rather interesting. After all, we are not so blank or flat as we
imagined ourselves to be.
Then we have the third kind of relationship with the path, which is
connected with the nirmanakaya. This is the basic practicality of existing
in the world. We have the totality, we have the various energies, and
then we have how to function in the world as it is, the living world. This
last aspect demands tremendous awareness and effort. We cannot simply
leave it to the totality and the energy to take care of everything; we have
to put some discipline into our approach to our life situations. All the
disciplines and techniques spoken of in spiritual traditions are connected
with this nirmanakaya principle of application on the path. There is practicing
meditation, working with the intellect, taking a further interest in
relationships with each other, developing fundamental compassion and
a sense of communication, and developing knowledge or wisdom that is
capable of looking at a whole situation and seeing the ways in which
things might be workable. All those are nirmanakaya disciplines.
Taken together, for three principles, or three stages- dharmakaya,
sambhogakaya, nirmanakaya- provilde us with a complete basis for our
spiritual journey. Because of them, rhe journey and out attitude toward
it become something workable, something we can deal with directly and
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intelligently, without having to relegate it to some vague category like
"the mysteriousness of life."
ln terms of our psychological state, these principles each have another
characteristic, which it is worth mentioning here. As a psychological
state, the dharmakaya is basic being. It is a totality in which confusion
and ignorance have never existed; it is total existence that never needs
any reference point. T he sambhogakaya is that which continually contains
spontaneous energy, because it never depends on any cause-and-effect kind
of energy. The nirmanakaya is self-existing fulfillment in relation to which
no strategizing about lww to fa.nction is necessary. Those are the psychological
aspects of buddha nature that develop.
In looking at Padmasambhava's life and his eight aspects, we will find
those three principles. Seeing those psychological principles in action in
Padmasambhava's life can help us to not regard Padmasambhava purely
as some mythical figure that no one has ever met. Those are principles
that we can work on together, and each one of you can work on them
in relation to yourself.
Student: Are the eight aspects of Padmasambhava like eight stages
that we can work through in trying to make a breakthrough in our own
psychological development?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Actually, the eight aspects are not really linear, successive
levels of development. What we have is more a single situation
with eight aspects- a central principle surrounded by eight types of
manifestation. There are e ight aspects of all kinds of situations.
Psychologically, we could make some kind of breakthrough by relating
with that. You see, as it tells us in the scriptures, when Padmasambhava
manifested as the eight aspects, he was already enlightened. The
eight aspects were not his spiritual journey, but he was expressing himself,
dancing with situations. He was already coming out with his crazywisdom
expressions.
What I'm trying to say is, we could find all those eight aspects within
ourselves, in one working situation. We could connect with them. We
could break through with all eight s •imultaneously.
S: So it's definitely not a linear pr ogression like the ten bhumis.
TR: You see, here we are talking about the sudden path, the direct
or sudden path of tantra. This is realization that does not depend on a
progressive, external buildup or unmasking. It is realization eating out
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from the inside rather than unmasking taking place from the outside.
Eating out from the inside is the tamtric approach. Jn some sense, this
supersedes the ten bhumis, or stages, of the bodhisattva path. We are
discussing more the vajra-like samadhi of the Buddha and his way of
relating with things, which of cours.e is connected with buddha nature;
we are approaching that here as a sudden, direct transmission, a direct
way, without going through the paramitas or the bhumis. The approach
here is to regard oneself as being a buddha already. Buddha is the path
rather than the goal. We are working from the inside outward. T he mask
is falling off by itself.
Student: Was Padmasambhava alceady buddha when he was born?
Trungpa Rinpoche: He was more an awake person than a fully realized
buddha. He was the dharmakaya principle trying to manifest itself on
the sambhogakaya level and then beginning to relate to the world outside.
Thus, he could be regarded as a person who was a potential buddha
at birth and who then broke the barriers to the fulfillment of that potential
ruthlessly and without fear. He attained instantaneous enlightenment
on one spot, and it seems that we could do the same.
Student: ls this connected with the idea of our having to take a leap
that you have spoken about so often?
Trungpa Rinpoche: This has more to do with the attitude of taking a
leap than actually raking the leap. You are willing to leap, so then there
is the situation of leaping. T he important thing here is the basic spirit or
outlook you have, rather than just the particular application of how you
handle things. It is something much bigger than that.
Stiulent: You've talked a lot about ruthlessness and fearlessness. What
are you ruthless toward? Do you just ruthlessly assume a particular psychological
attitude?
Trungpa Rinpoche: The whole point of ruthlessness is that when you
are ruthless, no one can con you. No one can seduce you in an unhealthy
direction. It is ruthlessness in that sense rather than in the conventional
sense of illogical aggression- such as in the case of Mussolini or Hitler
or someone like that. You cannot be conned or seduced; you would nor
accept that. Even attempts to seduce you arouse energy that is destructive
toward that attempted seduction. If you are completely open and
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completely aroused in terms of craz:y wisdom, no one can lure you into
their territory.
S: You can maintain the ruthlessness-
TR: You don't maintain the ruthlessness. Your ruthlessness is maintained
by others. You don't maint aiin anything at all. You just be there,
and whatever situation comes to you, you just project back. Take the
example of fire. It does not possess its destructiveness. That just happens.
When you put something in the fire or try to kill the fire, its offensive
power just comes out. It is the organic or chemical nature of fire.
S: When these things come at you, then you have to be ruthless in
order to repel them, right? T hen it seems chat a judgment has to be made
as to right and wrong, as to whether what is coming at you is positive
or negative, and whether to be com.passionate or ruthless.
TR: I don't think so. That's the whole point of the transcendental
type of ruthlessness. It does not need judgment. T he situation brings the
action. You simply react, because the elements contain aggression. lf the
elements are interfered with or dealt with in an irreverent or unskillful
way, they hit you back.
Ruthlessness may seem to survive on a sense of relativity, of "t his"
versus "that," but in fact it actually does not. It is absolute. The others
present a relative notion, which you cut through. T his state of be ing
is not on a relative level at all. In other words, chis absoluteness
cuts through the relative notion that comes to it, but still it remains selfcontained.
S: That would make it very isolated, very lonely.
TR: No, I don't think so, because absolute means everything. So you
have more than you need, so to speak.
S: Are you saying chat hopelessness and fearlessness are the same
thing?
TR: Yes. They are the ultimate thing, if you are able co work with
chat. They are the ultimate thing.
Student: How does ruthlessness apply to the destruction of ego? Ruthlessness
seems so uncompassionate, almost ego-like itself.
Thmgpa Rinpoche: Well, it is ego's intensity that brings forth "uncompassionate"
measures. In ocher words, when neurosis and confusion
reach an extreme point, the only way to correct the confusion is by destroying
it. You have to completely shatter the whole thing. That process
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of destruction is demanded by the confusion itself rather than it being a
question of somebody thinking it is a good idea to destroy the confusion
by force. No other thinking is involved. The intensity of confusion itself
demands its own destruction. Ruthlessness is just putting that energy
into action. It is just letting that energy burn itself out rather than your
killing something. You just let ego's neurosis commit suicide rather than
killing it. That's the ruthlessness. Ego is killing itself ruthlessly, and you
are providing the accommodation for that.
This is not warfare. You are there, and therefore it happens. On the
other hand, if you are not there, there is the possibility of scapegoats and
sidetracks of all kinds. But if you are there, you don't even actually have
to be ruthless. Just be there; from the point of view of ego, that is ruthless.
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Primordial Innocence
THE DISCOVERY OF THE PATH and the appropriate attitude toward
it have a certain fu nction spiritually. The path can make it possible
to connect with basic, primordial, innocent being.
We put so much emphasis on pain and confusion that we forget basic
innocence. The usual approach that we take toward spirituality is to look
for some experience that might enable us to rediscover our adulthood
rather than go back to our innocent childlike quality. We have been
fooled into looking for a way to be,come completely grown-up and respectable,
as it were, or psychologically sound.
This seems to correspond to the basic idea we have of enlightenment.
An enlightened person is supposed •co be more or less an old-wise-man
type: not quite like an old professor, but perhaps an old father who can
supply sound advice on how to handle all of life's problems or an old
grandmother who knows aJJ the recipes and aJJ the cures. That seems to
be the current fantasy that exists in our culture concerning enlightened
beings. They are old and wise, grown-up and solid.
Tantra has a different notion of enlightenment, which is connected
with youth and innocence. We can see this pattern in Padmasarnbhava's
life story, where the awakened state of mind is portrayed not as old and
adult but as young and free. Youth and freedom in this case are connected
with the birth of the awakened state of mind. T he awakened state
of mind has the quality of morning, of dawn- fresh and sparkling, completely
awake. This is the quality of the birth of Padrnasambhava.
Having identified ourselves with the path and the proper attitude
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toward the path, we suddenly discover that there is something beautiful
about it. The path has a freshness to it that contrasts sharply with the
monotony of going through a program of various practices. New discoveries
are being made. New discovery is the birch of Padmasambhava.
Padmasambhava was born in a lotus flower on a lake in Uddiyana.
He bad the appearance of an eight-year-old. He was inquisitive, bright,
youthful, untouched by anything. Since he had never been touched by
anything, he was not afraid to touch anything. He was surrounded by
dakinis making offerings to him and playing music. There were even
beasts, wild animals, all around payi:ng homage to him on this fresh, unpolluted
lake- Lake Dhanakosha in Uddiyana, somewhere in the Himalayan
region of Afghanistan. The landscape was similar to that of
Kashmir, with very fresh mountain air and snow-capped mountains all
around. There was a sense of freshness and at the same time some sense
of wildness.
For an infant to be born in such a wild, desolate place in the middle
of a lake on a lotus is beyond the grasp of conceptual mind. For one
thing, a child cannot be born from a lotus. For another, such a wild
mountain region is too hostile to accommodate the birth of a child, and
a healthy one at that. Such a birth is impossible. But then, impossible
things happen, things beyond our imagination. In fact, impossible things
happen before our imagination even occurs, so we could appropriately
describe them as unimaginable- even "out of sight" or "far out."
Padmasambhava was born in a lotus on this lake . He was born a
prince, young and cute, but also bright, terrifyingly bright. His bright
eyes look at you. He is not afraid to touch anything at all. Sometimes it
is embarrassing to be around him, this good and beautiful eight-year-old
infant.
The awakened state of mind could as well be infantlike as grown-up,
the way we usually imagine grown-up. Life batters us, confuses us, but
somebody manages to cross the tur:bulent river of life and find the answer;
somebody works very, very hard and finally achieves peace of
mind. That is our usual idea, but that is not how it is with Padmasambhava.
He is inexperienced. Life has not battered him at all. He was just
born out of a lotus in the middle of a lake in Afghanistan somewhere.
That is a very exciting message, extraordinarily exciting. One can be enlightened
and be infantlike. That is in accord with things as they are: if
we are awake, we are only an infant. At the first stage of our experience,
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we are just an infant. We are innocent, because we have gone back to
our original state of being.
Padmasambhava was invited to the court of King lndrabhuti. The
king had asked his gardeners to colle,ct fresh flowers- lotuses and mountain
flowers- in the region of the lake. To one of the gardeners' surprise,
he discovered a gigantic lotus with a child sitting on it- very happily. He
did not want to touch the child; he was afraid of the mysteriousness of
it. He reported back to the king, wh,o told him to bring the child as well
as the flower. Padmasambhava was enthroned and crowned as the
Prince of Uddiyana. He was called Padma Raja, or Perna Gyalpo in Tibetan,
"the Lotus King."
It is possible for us to discover our OWD innocence and childlike
beauty, the princelike quality in us. Having discovered all our confusions
and neuroses, we begin to realize that they are harmless or helpless.
T hen gradually we find the innocent -child quality in us. Of course, this
is quite different from the primal-scream type of idea. And it does not
mean that we are being reduced to a .child. Rather, we discover the childlike
quality in us. We become fresh, inquisitive, sparkling; we want to
know more about the world, more about life. All of our preconceptions
have been stripped away. We begin to realize ourselves-it is like a second
birth. We discover our innocence, our primordial quality, our eternal
youth.
The first breakthrough presents us with our childlike quality, but we
are still somewhat apprehensive about how to deal with life, though we
are not terrified by it. There is a sense of reaching out our hand and
beginning to explore all the unknowm areas for the first time. Our experience
of duality, what we thought we knew, our preconceptions-all that
has become false, has fallen apart. Now, for the first time, we recognize
the real quality of the path. We give up our ego reservations, or at least
realize them.
The more we realize ego and ego's neurosis, the closer we are to chat
infantlike state of mind of not knowing how to handle the next step in
life. Often people ask, "Suppose I do meditate, then what am I going to
do? If I attain a peaceful state of mind, how am I going to deal with my
enemies and my superiors?" We acrnally ask very infantli.ke questions.
"If thus-and-such happens as we pl."ogress along the path, then what's
going to happen next?" It is very childlike, infantlike; it is a fresh discovery
of perception, a new discovery of a sense of things as they are.
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So Padmasambhava lived in the palace; he was taken care of and entertained.
At a certain point, he was asked to marry. Because of his innocence,
he had great reservations about this, but he finally decided to go
ahead. The young prince grew up. He explored sexuality and the marriage
system and related with a wife. Gradually he came to realize that
the world around him was not all that debcate anymore, not as delicate
as lotus petals. The world was excit ing, playful. It was like being given,
for the first time, a substantial toy that could be bashed about, unscrewed,
taken apart, put back together again.
This is a very moving story of a journey ever further outward. Starting
from the basic innocence of the dharmakaya level, which is the embryonic
state ofbuddha nature, we have to come out, step out. We have
to relate with the playfulness of the world as it is on the sambhogakaya
and nirmanakaya levels.
Padmasambhava as a baby represents that complete, childlike state in
which there is no duality; there is no "this" and no "that." This state is
completely all-pervading. There is also a sense of freshness, because this
state is total, it is all over, there is no reference point. If there is no reference
point, then there is nothing to pollute one's concepts or ideas. It is
one absolute ultimate thing altogether.
Starting from that, Padmasambhava, having married, became more
playful. He even began co experiment with his aggression, finding that
he could use his strength to throw things and things could get broken.
And he carried this to an extreme, knowing that he had the potential for
crazy wisdom within him. He danced holding two scepters- a vajra and
a trident- on the palace roof. He dropped his vajra and trident, and they
fell and hit a mother and her son w ho were walking below, simultaneously
killing them both. T hey happened to be the wife and son of one
of the king's ministers. The vajra hit the child's head, and the trident
struck the mother's heart.
Very playful! (I am afraid this is not quite a respectable story.)
This event had serious repercuss-ions. The ministers decided to exert
their influence on the king and asked him to send Padmasambhava
away, to exile him from the kingdom. Padmasambhava's crime was
committed in the wildness of exploring things, which is still on the sambhogakaya
level- in the realm of experiencing things and their subtleties,
and of exploring birth and .death as well. So the king exiled
Padmasambhava. This was much to the king's own regret, but the play
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of the phenomenal world had to be legal. The phenomenal world is a
very basic legal setup . The play of phenomena has cause and effect constantly
happening within it.
This does not mean to say that Padmasambhava was subject to
karma. Rather, he was exploring the legality of karma- karmic interplays
with the outside world, the confused world. It was that confused
world that molded him to be a teacher, rather than his proclaiming himself,
saying, "] am a teacher" or "I am the savior of the world." He never
claimed anything like that. But the world began to mold Padmasambhava
into the shape of a teacher or savior. And one of the expressions
of the world's doing that, which made this process able to proceed, was
the fact that he performed this violent action and therefore had to be
expelled from King lndrabhuti's kingdom and had to go to the charnel
gr:ound of Silwa Tsai ("Cool Grove" ), supposedly somewhere in the region
of Bodhgaya in southern India.
This infant quality and the exploratory quality that develops in our
being as we begin to work on the spiritual path require working with
dangers as well as working with pileasures of all kinds. T hat childlike
quality automat ically tends toward t'!he world outside, having already realized
that the sudden, instant enlightened state of mind is not the end
but the beginning of the journey. T he sudden awakeness happens, and
then we become an infant. Then after that, we explore how to work
with phenomena, how to dance with phenomena, and at the same time,
how co relate with confused people. Working with confused people automatically
draws us into certain sh.apes according to the teachings the
confused people require and the situations that are required in order to
relate wit h them.
Stiulent: Could you say a bit more about the dharmakaya principle
and the idea of totality, as well as a bit more about the sambhogakaya
and nirmanakaya?
Trungpa Rinpoche: lt seems chat the dharmakaya principle is that
which accommodates everything. It accommodates any extremes,
whether the extremes are there or not- it doesn't really make any difference.
It is the totality in which there is tremendous room to move about.
The sambhogakaya principle is the energy that is involved with that totality
and chat puts further emphasis: on that totality. The totality aspect
of the dharmakaya is like the ocean, and the sambhogakaya aspect is like
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the waves of that ocean, which make the statement that that ocean does
exist. The nirmanakaya aspect is like a ship on the ocean, which makes
the whole situation into a pragmatic and workable one- you can sail
across the ocean.
S: How does this relate to confusion?
TR: Confusion is the other partner. If there is understanding, that understanding
usually has its own built -in limitation of understanding.
Thus, confusion is there automatically until the absolute level is reached,
where understanding does not need its own help, because the entire situation
is an understood situation.
Studen t: How does this apply to daily life?
Trun6>pa Rinpoche: Well, in daily life, it's just the same. Working with
the totality, there is basic room to work with life, and also there is energy
and practicality involved. In other words, we are not limited to a particular
thing. A lot of the frustration we have with our lives comes from the
feeling that there are inadequate means to change and improvise with
our life situations. But those three principles of dharmakaya, sambhogakaya,
and nirmanakaya provide us with tremendous possibilities for improvisation.
There are endless resources of all kinds we could work with.
Student: What was Padmasambh ava's relationship with King lndrabhuti
all about? How did it relate to his development from his basic innocence?
Trungpa Rinpocl1e: King Indrabhuti was the first audience, the first representative
of samsara. Indrabhuti's bringing him to the palace was the
starting point for learning how to work with student s, confused people.
lndrabhuti provided a strong father-figure representation of confused
mind .
Student: Who were the mother and son who were killed?
Trungpa Rinpoche: There have been several interpretations of that in
the scriptures and commentaries concerning Padmasambhava's life.
Since the vajra is connected with skillful means, the child kiJled by the
vajra is the opposite of skillful means, which is aggression. The trident is
connected with wisdom, so the mother killed by it represents ignorance.
And there area also further justifications based on the karma of previous
lives: the son was so-and-so and committed thus-and-such a bad karm ic
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act, and the same with the mother. But I don't think we have to go into
those details. It gets a bit too complicated. The story of Padmasambhava
at this point is in a completely different dimension- that of the psychological
world. It comes down to a practical level, so to speak, when he
gets to Tibet and begins dealing with the Tibetans. Before that, it is very
much in the realm of mind.
Student: Is there any analogy between these two deaths and the sword
of Manjushri cutting the root of ignorance? Or the Buddha's speaking
about shunyata, emptiness, and some of his disciples having heart
attacks?
Trungpa Rinpoche: I don't think so. The sword of Manjushri is very
much oriented toward practice on the path, but the story of Padmasambhava
is related with the goal. Once you have a lready experienced the
sudden flash of enlightenment, how <lo you handle yourself beyond that?
The Manjushri story and the story of the Heart Sutra and all the other
stories of sutra teaching correspond to the hinayana and mahayana levels
and are designed for the seeker on the path. What we are discussing here
is the umbrella notion- the notion of coming down from the top: having
already attained enlightenment, how do we work with further programs?
The story of Padmasambhava is a manual for buddhas-and each
of us is one of them.
Swdent: Was he experimenting with motive?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Well, in the realm of the dharmakaya, it is very
difficult to say what is and what is not the mot ive. There isn't anything
at all.
Stiulent: I would like to know more about the contrasting metaphors
of eating out from the inside and striipping away layers from the outside.
IfI understood correctly, stripping away is the bodhisattva path, whereas
on the tantric path, you're eating out from the inside. But I really don't
understand the metaphors.
Trungpa Rinpoche: T he whole point is that tantra is contagious. It involves
a very powerful substance, which is buddha nature eating out
from the inside rather than being reached by stripping away layers from
the outside. In Padmasambhava's life story, we are discussing the goal as
the path, rather than the path as the path. It is a different perspective
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altogether; it is not the point of vie-w of sentient beings trying to attain
enlightenment, but the point of view of an enlightened person trying to
relate with sentient beings. That is why the tantric approach is that of
eating outward, from the inside tO the outside. Padmasambhava's difficulties
with his father, King lndrabhuti, and with the murder of the child
and his mother are all connected wit h sentient beings. We are telling the
story from the inside rather than looking at somebody else's newsreel
taken from the outside.
Student: How does the eating away outward take place?
'Irungpa Rinpoche: Through dealing with situations skillfully. T he situations
are already created for you, and you just go out and launch yourself
along with them. Tt is a self-existing jigsaw puzzle that has been puc
together by itself.
Student: ls it the dharmakaya aspect that diffuses hope and fear?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Yes, that seems to be the basic thfog. Hope and fear
are all -pervading, like a haunted situation. But the dharmakaya takes
away the haunt altogether.
Student: Are you saying that the story of Padmasambhava, from his
birth in the lotus through his destroying all the layers of students' expectations
and finally manifesting as Dorje Trolo, is moving from the dharmakaya
slowly into the nirmanakaya?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Yes, that is wlhat T have been trying to get at. So
far, he has risen out of the dharmakaya and has just gotten to the fringe
of the sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya is the energy principle, or the
dance principle- dharmakaya being the total background.
S: Is it that hope and fear have to fade away before theTR:
Before the dance can take place. Yes, definitely.
Student: Is the sambhogakaya energy the energy that desire and anger
are attached to?
Trungpa Rinpoche: The sambhogakaya level doesn't seem to be that.
It is the positive aspect that is left b y the unmasking process. In other
words, you get the absence of aggression and that absence is turned into
energy.
S: So when the defilements are transformed into wisdom-
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TR: Transmuted. It is even more than transmutation- I don't know
what sort of a word there is. The defilements are being so completely
related to that their function becomes useless, but their nonfunctioning
becomes useful. There is another kind of energy in sambhogakaya.
Student: T here seems to be some kind of cosmic joke about the whole
thing. What you're saying is that you have to take the first step, but you
can't take the first step unt il you take the first step.
Trungpa Rinpoche: Yes, you have to be pushed into it. That is where
the relationship between teacher and student comes in. Somebody has
to push. That is the very primitive level at the beginning.
S: Are you pushing?
TR: T think so.
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Eternity and the Charnel Ground
I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE SURE that what we have already discussed is
quite clear. T he birth of Padmasambhava is like a sudden experience
of the awakened state. The birth of Padmasambhava cannot take place
unless there is an experience of the awakened state of mind that shows
us our innocence, our infantlike quality. And Padmasambhava's experiences
with King Indrabhuti of Uddiyana are connected with going further
after one has already had a sudden glimpse of awake. That seems
to be the teaching, or message, of Padmasambhava's life so far.
Now let us go on to the next aspect of Padmasambhava. Having experienced
the awakened state of m:ind, and having had experiences of
sexuality and aggression and all the pleasures that exist in the world,
there is still uncertainty about how to work with those worldly processes.
Padmasambhava is uncertain not in the sense of be ing confused,
but about how ro reach, how ro connect with the audience. The students
themselves are apprehensive, because for one thing, they have never
dealt with an enlightened person before. Working with an enlightened
person is extraordinarily sensitive and pleasurable, but at the same time,
it could be quite destructive. If we did the wrong thing, we might be hit
or destroyed. It is like playing with fire.
So Padmasambhava's experience of relating with samsaric mind continues.
He is expelled from the palace, and he goes on making further
discoveries. The discovery that he makes at this point is eternity. Eternity
here is the sense that the experience of awake is constantly going on
without any fluctuations- and without any decisions to be made, for
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that matter. At this point, in connection with the second aspect, the decisionlessness
of Padmasambhava's experience of dealing with sentient beings
becomes prominent.
Padmasambhava's second aspect is called Vajradhara. Vajradhara is a
principle or a state of mind that possesses fearlessness. The fear of death,
the fear of pain and misery- all such fears- have been transcended.
Having transcended those states, the eternity of life goes on beyond
them. Such eternity is not particularly dependent on life situations and
whether or not we make them healthier or whether or not we achieve
longevity. It is not dependent on anything of that nature.
We are discussing a sense of eternity that could apply to our own
lives as well. This attitude of eternity is quite different from the conventional
spiritual idea of eternity. The conventional idea is that if you attain
a certain level of spiritual one-upm.anship, you will be free from birth
and death. You will exist forever and be able to watch the play of the
world and have power over everything. It is the notion of the superman
who cannot be destroyed, the good savior who helps everybody using
his Superman outfit. This general notion of eternity and spirituality is
somewhat distorr.ed, somewhat cartoonlike: the spiritual superman has
power over others, and therefore he can attain longevity, which is a continuity
of his power over others. Of course, he does also help others at
the same time.
As Vajradhara, Padmasambhava's experience of eternity- or his existence
as eternity-is quite different. There is a sense of continuity, because
he has transcended the fear of birth, death , illness, and any kind of
pain. There is a constant living, electric experience that he is not really
living and existing, but rather it is the world that lives and exists, and
therefore he is the world and the world is him. He has power over the
world because he does not have power over the world. He does not
want to hold any kind of position as a powerful person at this point.
Vajradhara is a Sanskrit name. Vajra means "indestructible," dhara
means ''holder." So it is as the "holder of indestructibility" or "holder of
immovability" that Padmasambhava attains the state of eternity. He attains
it because he was born as an absolutely pure and completely innocent
child-so pure and innocent that he had no fear of exploring the
world of birth and death, of passion .and aggression. That was the preparation
for his existence, but his exploration continued beyond that level.
Birth and death and other kinds of threats might be seen by samsaric or
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confused mind as solid parts of a solid world. But instead of seeing the
world as a threatening situation, he began to see it as his home. In this
way, he attained the primordial state of eternity, which is quite different
from the state of perpetuating ego. Ego needs to maintain itself constantly;
it constantly needs further reassurance. But in this case, through
transcending spiritual materialism, Padmasambhava attained an ongoing,
constant state based on being inspired by fellow confused people,
sentient beings.
The young prince, recently turned out of his palace, roamed around
the charnel ground. There were floating skeletons with floating hair.
Jackals and vultures, hovering about, made their noises. The smell of
rotten bodies was all over the place . The genteel young prince seemed
to fit in to that scene quite well, as incongruous as it might seem. He was
quite fearless, and his fearlessness became accommodation as he roamed
through the jungle charnel ground of Silwa Tsai near Bodhgaya. There
were awesome-looking trees and terrifying rock shapes and the ruins of
a temple. The whole feeling was one of death and desolation. He'd been
abandoned, he'd been kicked out of his kingdom, but still he roamed and
played about as if nothing had happened. In fact, he regarded this place
as another palace in spite of all its terrifying sights. Seeing the impermanence
of life, he discovered the eternity of life, the constanc changing
process of death and birth taking place all the time.
There was a famine in the vicinity. People were continually dying.
Sometimes half-dead bodies were brought to the charnel ground, because
people were so exhausted with the constant play of death and sickness.
There were flies, worms, maggot s, and snakes. Padmasambhava,
this young prince who had recendy been turned out of a jewel-laden
palace, made a home out of this; seeing no difference at all between this
charnel ground and a palace, he took delight in it.
Our civilized world is so orderly that we do not see places like this
charnel ground. Bodies are kept in their coffins and buried quite respectably.
Nevertheless, there are the greater charnel grounds of birth, death,
and chaos going on around us all the time. We encounter these charnelground
situations in our lives constantly. We are surrounded by halfdead
people, skeletons everywhere. But still, if we identify with Padmasambhava,
we could relate with tha't fearlessly. We could be inspired by
this chaos- so much so that chaos could become order in some sense. It
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could become orderly chaos rather than just confused chaos, because we
would be able to relate with the world as it is.
Padmasambhava went and found the nearest cave, and he meditated
on the principle of the eternity of buddha nature: buddha nature is eternally
existing, without being threatened by anything at all. Realization
of that principle is one of the five stages of a vidyadhara. It is the first
stage, called the vidyadhara of eternity.
Vidyadliara means "he who ho lds the scientific knowledge" or "he
who has achieved complete crazy wisdom." So the first stage of crazy
wisdom is the wisdom of eternity. Nothing threatens us at all; everything
is an ornament. The greater the chaos, the more everything becomes
an ornament. That is the state of Vajradhara.
We might ask how a young, innocent prince came to have such training
that he was able to handle those charnel-ground situations. We might
ask such a question, because we generally assume that in order to handle
something we need training: we have to have benefited from an educational
system. We have to have read books on how to live in a charnel
ground and been instructed on what is appropriate and what is not appropriate
to eat there. No training was necessary for Padmasambhava,
because he was enlightened at the moment of his birth. He was coming
out of the dharmakaya into the sambhogakaya, and a sudden flash of
enlightenment does not need training. It does not require an educational
system. It is inborn nature, not dependent on any kind of training at all.
In fact, the whole concept of needing training for things is a very
weak approach, because it makes us feel we cannot possess the potential
in us, and that therefore we have to make ourselves better than we are,
we have to try to compete with her,oes or masters. So we try to imitate
those heroes and masters, believing that finally, by some process of psychophysical
switch, we might be able to become them. Although we are
not actually them, we believe we could become them purely by imitating-
by pretending, by deceiving ourselves constantly that we are what
we are not. But when this sudden flash of enlightenment occurs, such
hypocrisy doesn't exist. You do not have co pretend to be something.
You are something. You have certain tendencies existing in you in any
case. It is just a question of putting chem into practice.
Still, Padmasambhava's discovery might feel somewhat desolate and
slightly t errifying from our point of view if we imagine him meditating
in a cave, surrounded by corpses and terrifying animals. But somehow
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we do have to relate with that in our personal life situations. We cannot
con the existing experience of life; we cannot con our experiences or
change them by having some unrealistic belief that things are going to
be okay, that in the end everything is going to be beautiful. If we take
that approach, then things are not going to be okay. For the very reason
chat we expect things to be good and beautiful, they won't be.
When we have such expectations, we are approaching things entirely
from the wrong angle. Beauty is competing with ugliness, and pleasure
is competing with pain. In this realm of comparison, nothing is going to
be achieved at all.
We might say, ''I've been practicing; I've been seeking enlightenment,
nirvana, but I've been constantly pushed back. At the beginning,
I got some kind of kick out of those practices. I thought l was getting
somewhere. I felt beautiful, blissful, and I thought I could gee even better,
get beyond even that. But then nothing happened. Practice became
monotonous, and then l began to look for another solution, something
else. T hen at the same time, T thought, Tm starting to be unfaithful to
the practices I've been given. T shouldn't be looking for other practices.
T shouldn't look elsewhere, I should have faith, I should stick with it.
Okay, let's do it.' So I stick with it. But it is still uncomfortable, monotonous.
In fact, it is irritating, too painful."
We go on and on this way. We repeat ourselves. We build something
up and make ourselves believe in it. We say to ourselves, "Now I should
have faith. If I have faith, if I believe, I'm going to be saved." We try co
prefabricate faith in some way and get a momentary kick om of it. Bue
then it ends up the same way again and again and again- -we don't get
anything out of it. There are always those problems with that approach
to spirituality.
In Padmasambhava's approach to spirituality, we are not looking for
a kick, for inspiration or bliss. Instead, we are digging into life's irritations,
diving into the irritations and making a home out of that. If we
are able co make a home our of tho.se irritations, then the irritations become
a source of great joy, transcendental joy, mahasukha- because
there is no pain involved at all. This kind of joy is no longer related with
pain or contrasted with pain at all. So the whole thing becomes precise
and sharp and understandable, and we are able to relate with it.
Padmasambhava's further adaptation to the world through the att itude
of eternity, the first of the five stages of a vidyadhara, plays an
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important part in the study ofthe rest of Padmasambhava's aspects. This
subject comes up again and again.
Student: Why couldn't Padmasambhava's making his home in the
charnel ground be considered masochism?
Trungpa Rinpoche: To begin with, there is oo sense of aggression at all
He is not out to win anybody over. He is just there, relating to things as
they are. In masochism, you have to have someone to blame, someone
to relate to your pain: " If I commit suicide, my parents will know from
that how much I hate them." There's nothing like that here. It is a nonexistent
world, but he is still there, existing with it.
Student: I don't understand this extrahuman quality of being born out
of a lotus plant- like Christ's having a virgin mother. Isn't that presenting
Padmasambhava as an ideal beyond us that we have to relate to as
other-than-human?
Trungpa Rinpoche: In some way, being born from a mother and from
a lorus are exactly the same situation. There is nothing all that superhuman
about it: it is an expression of miracles that do exist. People who
watch a birth for the first time often find that that is a miracle too. In
the same way, being born from a lotus is a miracle, but there is nothing
particularly divine or pure about it. Being born from a lotus is an expression
of openness. The process of being in the womb for nine months
does not have to be gone through. It is a free and open situation- the
lotus opens and the child is there. It iis a very straightforward thing. With
regard to the lotus, we do not have to discuss such questions as the validity
of the statement that Christ's mother was a virgin. T here could only
be this one lotus there at that time. T hen it died. So we could say it was
a free birth.
S: Birth from the lotus could also mean the negation of karmic
history.
TR: That's right, yes. There is no karmic history involved at all. Just
somewhere in Afghanistan a lotus happened to bear a child.
Student: Could you please say something about the relationship between
the Vajradhara aspect of Padmasambhava and the dharmakaya
buddha of the Kagyii lineage, also called Vajradhara?
Trungpa Rinpoche: As you say, for the Kagyii lineage, Vajradhara is
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the name of the primordial buddha on the dharmakaya level, who is
continuously existing. Padmasamb hava's Vajradhara aspect is on the
sambhogakaya level of relating with life experiences; or on a secondary
dharmakaya level, it is connected with the all-pervasiveness of sentient
beings, there at your disposal to work with. But it is primarily a sambhogakaya
principle. In this sense, the five aspects of the sambhogakaya, the
five sambhogakaya buddhas, are the eight aspects of Padmasambhava.
Student: You talked about staying with the irritation; in fact, savoring
it. ls the idea that pain is associated with withdrawal and avoidance, so
you move into the pain or closer to the pain, and it disappears? Is there
some possibility of enlightenment coming out of that?
Trungpa Rinpoche: This is actually a very delicate point. We have the
problem that a sort of sadistic attitude could occur, which we find in a
lot of militant attitudes toward Zen practices as well. We also have the
" inspirational" approach of getting in to the teachings and ignoring the
pain. These attitudes lead to blind confusion. And we find our bodies
being abused, not taken care of properly.
In this case, relating with the pain is not quite the sadistic approach
or that of militant practice on the one hand, nor is it based on the idea
of ignoring the whole thing and spacing out into your mind trip on the
other hand. It is something between these two. To begin with, pain is
regarded as something quite real, something actually happening. It is not
regarded as a doctrinal or philosophical matter. It is simple pain or simple
psychological discomfort. You dl.on't move away from the pain, because
if you do, you have no resources to work with. You don't get into
the pain or inflict pain on yourself, because then you are involved in a
suicidal process; you are destroying yourself. So it is somewhere between
the two.
Student: How does making a home in the irritations relate to the
mandala principle?
Trungpa Rinpoche: T hat seems to be the mandala already, in itself. Relating
with the irritations has the sense of there being all kinds of irritations
and infinite flll'ther possibilities: of them. That is a mandala. You are
right there. Mandala is a sense of to ta! existence with you in the center.
So here you are in the center of irritation. It is very powerful.
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Student: In defining vidyadhara, you talked about scientific knowledge.
What does scientific knowledge hav,e to do with Padmasambhava's life?
Trungpa Rinpoche: I am using "scientific knowledge" in the sense of
the most accurate knowledge on how to react to situations. The essence
of crazy wisdom is that you have no strategized programs or ideals anymore
at all. You are just open. Whatever students present, you just react
accordingly. T his is continuously scientific in the sense that it is continuously
in accordance with the nature of the elements.
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FIVE
Let the Phenomena Play
WE MAY NOT HAVE THE TIME to go through the rest of the eight
aspects of Padmasambhava at the same pace as we went through
the first two. Bur our discussion so far has provided a basic ground for
the discussion of the whole process of Padmasambhava's life and his personal
expansion. What l would like to do is try to convey a sense of
Padmasambhava that brings all of his aspects together. This is very hard
to do, because the medium of woirds is limited. Words do not cover
enough of the insight. But we shall do our best.
We are not talking about Padmasambhava from an extemal historical
point of view or an external mythical one. We are trying to get at the
marrow inside the bone, so to speak-the instantaneous or embryonic
aspect of him and how he relates to life from that. This is a sacred or
tantric way of seeing Padmasambhava's life, as opposed to accounts and
interpretations that see him purely as a historical or mythical figure- like
King Arthur or someone like that.
The inside story is based on the r elationship of the events in Padmasambhava's
life to the teachings. T his is the point of view from which I
have been trying to work into the story of Padmasambhava as the young
prince and as the young siddha, or accomplished yogi, in the charnel
ground. These two aspects are extraordinarily important for the rest of
Padmasambhava's life.
Padmasambhava's next phase arose from the need for him to be accepted
into the monastic life. He had to be ordained as a bhikshu,
or monk. Relating with the monastic system was important because it
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provided a disciplinary situation. Pa.dmasambhava was ordained by Ananda,
a disciple and attendant of the Buddha. As a monk, Padmasambhava
acquired the name Shakya Siimha, or Shakya Senge in Tibetan,
which means "lion of the Shakya Tribe." This was one of the Buddha's
names (the Buddha was also sometimes known as "the Sage of the
Shakyas"), and through this name Padmasambhava became identified
with the tradition of the Buddha. This was very important, because one
needs a tremendous sense of relatio nship with the lineage. So Padmasambhava
associated himself with the lineage and realized what an important
part it plays.
The lineage of the Buddha is a lineage of constant basic sanity, a sane
approach to life. Becoming a monk means living life sanely- sanely and
saintly- because it is a complete and coca] involvement with things as
they are. As a monk, you do not miss any points. You relate with life
from the point of view that the given moment actually permits a sense
of a living quality, a sense of totality, a sense of not being moved by
passion, aggression, or anything at a ll- you are just dealing with things
as the monastic life permits, as they are.
As Padmasambhava developed in his monastic role, he again began
to manifest in the style of a young prince, but in this case, as a young
prince who had become a monk. He decided to become the savior of
the world, the bringer of the message of dharma.
One day he visited a nunnery. Ac this particular nunnery lived a princess
called Mandarava, who had just recently become a nun and had
completely turned away from worl,dly pleasure. She lived in seclusion,
guarded by five hundred women, whose task was to make sure that she
maintained her monastic discipline. When Padmasambhava arrived at
the monastery, everyone was quite impressed with him- naturally. He
had the innocence of one born from a lotus and a pure and ideal physique.
He was very beautiful. He converted all the women in the nunnery:
they all became his students.
The king, Mandarava's father, soon heard something of this. A cowherd
reported that he had heard an unusual male voice coming from the
nunnery, preaching and shouting. Tbe king had thought that Mandarava
was an absolutely perfect nun and had no relations of any kind with
men. He got quire upset at the cowherd's news and sent his ministers to
find out what was happening at the nunnery. The ministers were not
allowed into the nunnery compound but suspected that something
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funny was going on there. They reported back to the king, who decided
to have the army destroy the nunnery gate, march in, and arrest this
rascal posing as a teacher. This they .d id. They captured Padmasambhava
and put hin1 on a pyre of sandalwood and set it afire (this was the style
of execution that had developed in that particular kingdom). The princess
was thrown into some pitch containing thorns and )jce and fl eas.
T his was the king's idea of religion.
The fire in which Padmasambhava had been placed burned on and
on for seven days. Usually when they executed someone, the fire lasted
only for a day or two. ln this case, however, it burned on and on. Very
unusual. The king began to think that perhaps there was also something
unusual about this man wandering about pretending to be a guru. He
sent his men to investigate, and they found that the fire had disappeared
and that the whole area where the fire had been had turned into a huge
lake. In the middle of the lake was Padmasambhava, once again sitting
on a locus. When the king heard this, he decided to find out rnore about
this person. He decided not to trust the matter to a messenger, bur went
himself to see Padmasambhava. When he arrived at the scene, he was
overwhelmed by the presence of this person sitting on a lotus in the
middle of a lake where a charnel ground and a place to burn criminals
had been. The king confessed his wrongdoings and foolish actions to
Padmasambhava and invited him back to the palace. Padmasambhava
refused to go, saying he would not enter the palace of a sinner- the palace
of a wicked king who had condemned someone who was the spiritual
essence of both king and guru, w ho bad ignored the true essence of
spirituality. The king repeated his request and finally Padmasambhava
accepted his invitation. The king himself pulled the car in which Padmasambhava
sat. Padmasambhava became the rajguru, the king's guru, and
Mandarava was rescued from the pitch.
During this phase of his life, Pa,dmasambhava's approach to reality
was one of accuracy, but within this realm of accuracy he was ready to
allow people room to make mistakes on the spiritual path. He was even
ready to go so far as to let the king try to burn him alive and put his
student, the princess, into the pitch . He felt he should let those things
happen. This is an important point chat already shows the pattern of his
teaching.
There had to be room for the king's realization of his neurosis- his
whole way of acting and thinking- to come through by itself. His real-
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ization had to be allowed to come tlhrough by itself, rather than by Padmasambhava's
performing some miraculous act of magical power
(which he was quite capable of) before he was arrested. Padmasambhava
could have said, "I am the world's greatest teacher; you cannot touch
me. Now you will see the greatness of my spiritual power." Bue he didn't
do that. Instead, be let himself be arrested.
This is a very important indicatio,n of Padmasambhava's way of relating
with samsaric, or confused, mind: let the confusion come through,
and then let the confusion correct itself. It is like the story about a particular
Zen master who had a woman student. The woman became pregnanr
and bore a child. Her parents came to the Zen master, bringing the
child, and complained to hin1, saying, "This is your child; you should
take care of it." The Zen master replied, "Is that so?" and he took the
child and cared for it . A few years la ter, the woman was no longer able
to bear the lie she had told- the father of the child was not the teacher
but someone else altogether. She went to her parents and said, "My
teacher was not the father of the child; it was someone else." Then the
parents became worried and felt they had better rescue the child from
the hands of the teacher, who was meditating in the mountains. They
found him and said, "We have discovered that this is not your child.
Now we are going to rescue it from you; we are going to take it away
from you. You are not the real father." And the Zen master just said, "Is
that so?"
So let the phenomena play. Let the phenomena make fools of themselves
by themselves. T his is the approach. There is no point in saying,
" Let me have a word with you. I would like to explain the whole situation
inside-out ." By itself, just saying something is inadequate- not to
mention the difficulty of finding the right thing to say. It simply does not
work. The phenomenal world cannot be conned with words, with logic,
petty logic. T he phenomenal world can only be dealt with in terms of
what happens within it, in terms of its own logic. This is a larger version
of the logic, the totality of the logicalness of the situation. So an important
feature of Padmasambhava's style is letting the phenomena play
themselves through rather than trying to prove or explain something.
In the next situation, the next aspect, Padmasambhava was faced with
five hundred heretics, or tirthikas in Sanskrit. In this case, the heretics
were the theists, the Brahmanists; they could also have been Jehovists-
or whatever you would like to call the approach that is the oppo-
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site of the nontheistic approach of the buddhadharma. A logical debate
took place: A huge crowd surrounded two pandits, facing each other.
The theistic pandit and the nontheistic pandit were debating each other
on the nature of spirituality. Both of them were on a spiritual trip. (It
does not matter whether you are a theist or a nontheist- you can still
be on a spiritual trip.) Both were trying to establish their territory, to
prove that they had grounds for having the spiritual path their way. In
this case, the theists won and the Buddhists, who were completely overwhelmed
by logical in telligence, lost. Then Padmasambhava was asked
to perform a ceremony of destruction, to destroy the theists and their
whole setup. He performed the ceremony and caused a huge landslide,
which killed the five hundred pandits and destroyed their whole ashram.
In this aspect, Padmasambhava is known as Senge Dradrok, which is
"Lion's Roar." The lion's roar destroys the dualistic psychology in which
value and valid ity are attributed to things because there is the other thing
happening- the Brahma, or God, or whatever you like to call it. The dualistic
approach says that because "that" happened, therefore "this" also
is a solid and real thing. In order to become Him or Her, whichever it
may be, we should be receptive to that higher thing, that objective thing.
This approach is always problematic. And the only way to destroy that
dualistic setup is to arouse Padmasambhava's crazy-wisdom aspect to
destroy it.
From the point of view of crazy wisdom, "that" does not exist; and
the reason "that" does not exist is because "this," the self, no longer
exists. In some sense, you could say that here the destruction is mutual
destruction. But at the same time, this destruction is favorable from the
nontheistic point of view. If Jehovah or Brahma exists, then the perceiver
has to exist in order to acknowledge that existence. But the crazywisdom
approach is that the acknowledger does not exist; it is no longer
there, or at least it is questionable .. And if "this" does not exist, then
"that" is out of the question altogether. It is purely a phantom, imagi•
nary. And even for an imagination to exist, you need an imaginer. So the
destruction of the centralized notion of a self brings with it the nonexistence
of " that."
This is the approach of Padmasambhava as Senge Dradrok, Lion's
Roar. The lion's roar is heard, because the lion is not afraid of "that";
the lion is willing to go into, to overwhelm, whatever there is, because
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"this" does not exist to be destroyed anymore. In this sense, the lion's
roar can be connected with the development of vajra pride.
The next aspect is D01je Trolo, which came about when Padmasambhava
went to Tibet. The Tibetans were not involved in foreign- that
is, external-worship. They did not have the Hindu realm of the gods.
They did not even know the word Brahma. What they had was yeshen,
which is the equivalent word in the Bon tradition to "absoluteness." '
Ye means "primordial"; shen means "ancestralness" or "great friend." In
coming to Tibet, the buddhadharma was now encountering an entirely
new angle, a new approach.
Up until that time, Padmasambhava had been dealing with Hindus,
Brahmanists. What he encountered in Tibet was entirely different from
that. The classical Tibetan word yeshen has a sense that is something like
"ancestral" or "ancient" or even "celestial." [t is similar to the Japanese
word shin, which means "heaven," or to the Chinese word ta, which
means "that which is above." All three terms relate to something
greater, something above. There is an upward process involved, which
could be associated with dragons, thunderstorms, clouds, the sun and
moon, stars, and so forth. They relate to that "above" thing, to that
higher, greater cosmic pattern.
This was extremely difficu lt for Padmasambhava to deal with. It was
impossible to deal with it through logic, because the wisdom of the Bon
tradition was very profound, extremely profound. If Padmasambhava
had had to challenge the Bonists with logic, the only approach he could
have taken would have been to say that earth and heaven are a unity,
that heaven as such does not exist because heaven and earth are interdependent.
But that is very shaky logic, because everyone knows that there
is earth and there is heaven, that there are mountains and stars and suns
and moons. You could not challenge these people by saying that there is
no earth, no mountains; there is no sun, no moon, no sky, no stars.
The basic Bon philosophy is very powerful; it is much like the American
Indian, Shinto, or Taoist approach to cosmic sanity. The whole thing
is an extraordinarily sane approach .. Bur there is a problem. It is also a
very anthropocentr ic approach. The world is created for human beings;
animals are human beings' next meal or their skins are human beings'
next clothes. This anthropocentric approach is actually Jacking in basic
sanity; it is not able to respect the basic continuity of consciousness.
Consequently, the Bon religion prescribes animal sacrifice to the yeshen,
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or great god. Here again, we find a similarity with the American Indian
and Shinto outlook, with man as the center of the universe. According
to that outlook, the grasses and trees, the wild animals, and the sun and
the moon are there for human entertainment. The whole system is
based on human existence. That is the big problem.
Buddhism is not a national religious approach. National religions tend
to be theistic. Let us remember that Christianity inherited its theistic approach
from Judaism; Judaism, Shintoism, Hinduism, and many other
religions like them are national religfons that are also theistic. They have
their particular sense of the relationship between "this" and "that," earth
and heaven. The nontbeistic approach is extremely difficult to present in
a primitive country that already has a belief in a theistic religion. The
way the people of such a country relate to their basic survival already
contains a sense of the earth in relation to the magnificence of heaven.
Their sense of worship is already developed.
Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries have recently developed a
method in which they tell primitive peoples, "Yes, your gods do exist, it
is true, but my god is much wiser than your god, because it is omnipresent
and so forth- ambidextrous and all the rest." But Buddhism faces an
entirely different problem. There is no question of your god and my god.
You have your god, but I don't have a god, so I am left just sort of suspended
there. J have nothing to substitute. Where is the greatness and
power of my approach? 1 have nothing to subst itute. T he only thing
there is to substitute is crazy wisdom- mind is very powerful. We all
have mind, including animals. Everybody has mind. lt does not matter
about Him or Them, or Them and Him, or whatever.
One's state of mind is very powerful. It can imagine destroying something,
and it destroys it. Jt can imagine creating something, and it creates
it. Whatever you intend in the realm of mind, it happens. Imagine your
enemy. You want to destroy your enemy, and you have developed all
kinds of tactics for doing so. You have infinite imaginations about how
to handle the destruction of that enemy. Imagine your friend. You have
infinite inspirations about how to re late with your friend, how to make
him or her feel good or better or richer.
That is why we have built these houses and roads, manufactured
these beds and blankets. That is why we have provided this food,
thought up all kinds of dishes. We have done all this to prove to our-
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selves that we do exist. This is a kind of humanistic approach. Man does
exist, his intelligence does exist. This is entirely nontheistic.
Padmasambhava's approach to magic was on this nontheistit level.
Lightning happens because it does happen, rather than because there is
any further why or who or what involved. It does happen. Flowers blossom
because it happens, it is so. We cannot argue that there are no
flowers. We cannot argue that no snow falls. It is so. It happens. It came
from up there, from the sky, but so what!? What do you want to manufacture
there?
Everything happens on this plane, on this really earthy plane. Everything
happens on a very straight ancl down-to-earth level. Therefore, the
crazy wisdom of Dorje Trolo begins to develop. It is extraordinarily
powerful. It is powerful on the kitch en-sink level- that is what is so irritating.
In fact, that is what is so powerful. !t haunts everywhere- it really
is there.
Dorje Troli:i arrives in Tibet riding a pregnant tigress. The tigress is
electric. She is pregnant electricity. She is somewhat domesticated, bur
at the same time has the potential of running wild. Dorje Troli:i knows
no logic. As far as Dorje Troli:i is concerned, the only conventional logic
there is, is relating with heaven and earth. Because the sky forms itself
into its particular shape, the horizon exists. There is the vastness of
space, the sky; and there is the vastness of the earth. They are vase, but
okay- so what? Do you want to make a big deal out of the vastness?
Who are you trying to compete with? There is this vastness, but why
not consider the smallest things that are happening as well? Aren't they
more threatening? The grain of sand is more threatening than the vastness
of space or of the desert; because of its concentratedness, it is extremely
explosive. There is a huge cosmic joke here, a gigantic cosmic
joke, a very powerful one.
As Dorje Trolo's crazy wisdom expanded, he developed an approach
for communicating with future generations. In relation to a lot of his
writings, he thought, "These words may not be important at this point,
bur I am going to write them down and bury them in the mountains of
Tibet." And he did so. He thought, "Someone will discover them later
and find them extraordinarily mind-blowing. Let them have a good time
then." This was a unique approach. Gurus nowadays think purely in
terms of the effect they might have n ow. They do not consider trying to
have a powerful effect on the future. But Dorje Troli:i thought, "If I leave
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an example of my teaching behind, even if people of future generations
do not experience my example, just hearing my words alone could cause
a spiritual atomic bomb to explode in a future time." Such an idea was
unheard-of. It is a very powerful thing.
The spiritual force of Padmasambhava as expressed in his manifestation
as Dorje Trolo is a direct message that no longer knows any question.
It just happens. There is no room for interpretations. T here is no
room for making a home out of this . T here is just spiritual energy going
on that is real dynamite. If you distort it, you are destroyed on the spot.
If you are actually able to see it, th.en you are right there with it. It is
ruthless. At the same rime, it is compassionate, because it has all this
energy in it. The pride of being in the state of crazy wisdom is tremendous.
But there is a loving quality in it as well.
Can you imagine being hit by love and hate at the same time? In
crazy wisdom, we are hit with compassion and wisdom at the same
time, without a chance of analyzing them. There's no time to think;
there's no time to work things out at all It is there- bur at the same
time, it isn't there. And at the same time also, it is a big joke.
Student: Does crazy wisdom require raising your energy level?
Trungpa Rinpoche: l don' t think so, because energy comes along with
the situation itself. In other words, t he highway is the energy, not your
driving fast. The highway suggests your driving fast. The self-existing
energy is there.
S: You're not worried about the car?
TR: No.
Student: Has the crazy-wisdom teaching developed in any lineages
other than the Nyingma lineage?
Trungpa Ri.npoche: l don't think so. T here is also the mahamudra lineage,
which is based on a sense of precision and accuracy. But the crazywisdom
lineage that I received from my guru seems to have much more
potency. It is somewhat illogical- s()me people might find the sense of
not knowing how to relate with it quite threatening. Tt seems to be connected
with the Nyingma tradition and the maha ati lineage exclusively.
Student: What was the name of the Padmasambhava aspect before
Dorje Troia?
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Trungpa Rinpoche: Nyima Oser, "Holding the Sun."
S: Was that when he was with Mandarava?
TR: No. Then he was known as Loden Choksi. ln the iconography,
he is wearing a white turban.
Student: Are there any controls or precepts connected with crazy
wisdom?
Tnmgpa Rinpoche: Other than it:self, there doesn't seem to be anything.
Just being itself.
S: There are no guidelines?
TR: There is no textbook for becoming a crazy-wisdom person. It
doesn't hurt to read books, but unless you are able to have some experience
of crazy wisdom yourself through contact with the crazy-wisdom
lineage- with somebody who is crazy and wise at the same time- you
won't get much out of books alone. A lot really depends on the lineage
message, on the fact that somebody has already inherited something.
Without that, the whole thing becomes purely mythical. But if you see
that somebody does possess some element of crazy wisdom, that will
provide a certain reassurance, which is worthwhile at this point.
St!ldent: Could you mention one of the spiritual time bombs, other
than the lineage itself, that was left ibehind by Padmasambhava as a legacy
and as a teaching that is relevant today?
Trungpa Rinpoche: We might say this seminar is one of them. lf we
weren't interested in Padmasambbava, we wouldn't be here. He left his
legacy, his personality, behind, and that is why we are here.
Student: You mentioned some of the difficulties Padmasambhava
faced in presenting the dharma to the T ibetans, principally that the Tibetans'
mental outlook was theistic while Buddhism is nontheistic. What
are the difficulties in presenting the dharma to the Americans?
Trungpa Rinpoche: I think it is the same thing. The Americans worship
the sun and the water gods and the mountain gods-they still do. That
is a very primordial approach, and some Americans are rediscovering
their heritage. We have people going on an American Indian trip, which
is beautiful, but the knowledge we have of it is not all that accurate.
Americans regard themselves as sophisticated and scientific, as educated
experts on everything. But still we are acmaJly on the level of ape
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culture. Padmasambhava's approach of crazy wisdom is further education
for us- we could become transcendental apes.
Student: Could you say something more about vajra pride?
Tnmgpa Rinpoche: Vajra pride is the sense that basic sanity does exist
in our state of being, so we don't particularly have to try to work .it out
logically. We don't have to prove chat something is happening or not
happening. The basic dissatisfaction that causes us to look for some spiritual
understanding is an expression of vajra pride: we are not willing to
submit to the suppression of our confusion. We are willing to stick our
necks out. That seems to be a first expression of the vajra-pride instinctand
we can go on from there1
Student: Two of the aspects of Padmasambhava seem to be cont radictory.
Padmasambhava allowed the confusion of the king to manifest and
then turn back on itself, yet he didn't allow the confusion of the five
hundred pandits to manifest (if you want to call dualism confusion). He
just destroyed them with a landslide. Could you comment on this?
Trungpa Rinpoche: T he pandits seem to have been very simple-minded
people, because they had no connection with the kitchen-sink-level
problems of life. T hey were purely thriving on their projection of who
they were. So, according to the story, the only way to relate with them
was to provide them with the experience of the landslide- a sudden jerk
or shock. Anything else they could have reinterpreted inco something
else. [fthe pandits had been in the king's situation, they would have been
much more hardened, much less enlightened, than he was. T hey had no
willingness to relate with anything ait all, because they were so hardened
in their dogmatism. Moreover, it was necessary for them to realize the
nonexistence of themselves and Brahma. So they were provided with
the experience of a catastrophe that was caused not by Brahma but by
themselves. This left them in a noutheistic situation: they themselves
were all that there was; there was no possibility of reproaching God or
Brahma or whatever.
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SI X
Cynicism and Devotion
HOPEFULLY, YOU HAVE HAD atleastaglimpseofPadmasambhava
and his aspects. According to tradition, there are three ways in
which the life of Padmasambhava can be told: the external, factual way;
the internal, psychological way; and the higher, secret way, which is the
approach of crazy wisdom. We have concentrated on the secret way,
with some elements of the other two.
By way of conclusion, it would be good to discuss how we can relate
with Padmasambhava. Here, we are considering Padmasambhava as a
cosmic principle rather than as a historical person, an Indian saint. Different
manifestations of this principle appear constantly: Padmasambhava
is Shakya Senge, the yogi Nyima Oser, the prince Perna Gyalpo, the mad
yogi D01je Troli\ and so forth. The Padmasambhava principle contains
every element that is part of the enlightened world.
Among my students, a particular approach co the teachings seems to
have developed. By way of beginning, we have adopted an attitude of
distrust: distrust toward ourselves and also toward the teachings and the
teacher- toward t he whole situation in fact. We feel that everything
should be taken with a grain of salt, that we should examine and test
everything thoroughly to make sure it is good gold. In taking this approach,
we have had to develop our sense of honesty- we have to cut
through our own self-deceptions, which play an important part. We cannot
establish spirituality without cutting through spiritual materialism.
Having already prepared the basic ground with the help of this distrust,
it may be time t o change gears, so to speak, and try almost the
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Sliakya Senge.
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opposite approach. Having developed accurate and vajra-like cynicism
and having cultivated vajra nature, we could begin to realize what
spirituality is. And we find that spirituality is completely ordinary. It is
completely ordinary ordinariness. Though we might speak of it as extraordinary,
in fact it is the most ordinary thing of all.
To relate with this, we might have to change our pattern. The next
step is to develop devotion and faith. We cannot relate to the Padmasambhava
principle unless there is some kind of warmth. If we cut
through deception completely and h onestly, then a positive situation begins
to develop. We gain a positive understanding of ourselves as well as
of the teachings and the teacher. In order to work with the grace, or
adhishthana, of Padmasambhava, with this cosmic principle of basic sanity,
we have to develop a kind of romanticism. This is egually important
as the cynical approach we have been taking up till now.
There are two types of this romantic, or bhakti, approach. One is
based on a sense of poverty. You feel you don't have it, but the others
do. You admire the richness of "that": the goal, the guru, the teachings.
This is a poverty approach- you feel that these other things are so
beautiful because you don't have what they have. It is a materialistic
approach- that of spiritual materialism- and it is based on there not
being enough sanity in the first place, not enough sense of confidence
and richness.
The other type of romantic approach is based on the sense that you
do have it; it is there already. You do nor admire it because it is somebody
else's, because it is somewhere far away, distant from you, but because
it is right near- in your heart. It is a sense of appreciation of what
you are. You have as much as the teacher has, and you are on the path
of dharma yourself, so you do not' have to look at the dharma from
outside. This is a sane approach; it is fundamentally rich; there is no
sense of poverty at all.
This type of romanticism is important. It is the most powerful thing
of all. It cuts through cynicism, which exists purely for its own sake, for
the sake of its own protection. It cwts through cyn icism's ego game and
develops further and greater pride- vajra pride, as it is called. There is a
sense of beauty aud even of love and light. Without this, relating with
the Padmasambbava principle is purdy a matter of seeing how deep and
profound you can get in your psychological experience. It remains a
myth, something that you do not h ave; therefore it sounds interesting
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but never becomes personal. Devotion or compassion is the only way of
relating with the grace- the adhishthana, or blessing- of Padmasambhava.
It seems that many people find this cynical aod skept ical style that we
have developed so far too irritatingly cold. Particularly, people who are
having their first encounter with our scene say this. T here is no sense of
invitation; people are constantly b eing scrutinized and looked down
upon. Maybe that is a very honest way for you to relate with the
"other," which is also you. But at some point, some warmth has to develop
in addition to the coldness. You do not exactly have to change the
temperature- intense coldness is warmth- but there is a certain twist
we could accomplish. It lies only in our conceptual mind and logic. In
reality, there is no twist at all, but we have to have some way of putting
th is into words. What we are talking about is irritatingly warm and so
powerful, so magnetizing.
So our discussion of Padmasambhava seems to be a landmark in the
geography of our journey together. It is time to begin with that romantic
approach, if we may call it that: the sane romantic approach, not the
materialistic romantic approach.
Our seminar here happened purely by accident, even though it in volved
a lot of organizing, working a lot of things out. But still it was
worked out accidentally. It is a very precious accident that we were able
to discuss such a topic as the life of Padmasambhava. The opportunity
to discuss such a subject is very rare, unique, very precious. But such a
rare and precious situation goes on constantly; our life as part of the
teachings is extremely precious. Each person came here purely by accident,
and since it was an accident, it cannot be repeated . That is why it
is precious. That is why the dharma is precious. Everything becomes
precious; human life becomes precious.
There is this rare preciousness of our human life: we each have our
brain , our sense perceptions, our mat erials to work on. We have each
had our problems in the past: our depressions, our moments of insanity,
our struggles- all these make sense. So the journey goes on, the accidenc
goes on- which is that we are here. This is the kind of romanticism, the
kind of warmth I am talking about. It is worthwhile approaching the
teaching in this way. Ifwe do not, we cannot relate with the Padmasambhava
principle.
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Student: Could you tell us something about how you related to the
crazy wisdom of your guru, Jamgon Kongtrtil of Sechen, ifhe had it, and
how you combined those two approaches of wealth and poverty when
you studied with him?
Trungpa Rinpoche: I think my way of working with it was very similar
to everyone else's. At the beginning, personally, I had a lot of fascination
and admiration based on the poverty point of view. Also, it was very
exciting, because seeing Jamgon Kongtrtil Rinpoche rather than just having
to sit and memorize texts provided quite a break. It was always fun
to watch him, and to hang out with him was great.
This was still based on a poverty-stricken kind of mentality- on being
entertained by that which you do not have. AU I had were my books to
read and my tutor to discipline me. Moreover, Jamgon Kongtri.il, with
his extraordinary und erstanding and spiritual energy, was presented as
the example of what I should become when I grew up. T his is what I
was told over and over again, which was based on the style of poverty
and materialism. Of course, the people in the monastery cared for me,
but they were also concerned with public relat ions: fame, glory, enlight enment.
But as I became close to Jamgon Kongtri.il, I gradually stopped trying
to collect something for myself so that I could be enriched. I began just
to enjoy his presence, just to go along with him. Then I could really feel
his warmth and his richness and be part of it as well. So it seems that
you stare with the materialistic approach and gradually change to the
sane approach, to devotion.
As far as Jamgon Kongtriil is concerned, he possessed a ll the qualities
o f Padmasambhava. Sometimes he looked just like a big baby. T hat was
the little prince aspect. Sometimes he was kind and helpful. Sometimes
he put out black air that gave you the feeling that something was wrong
and made you feel extraord inarily paranoid. I used to feel like I had a
huge head hanging out and was very embarrassed about it, but I didn't
know what to do.
Student: Is the cynical phase that we have been going through due to
our being Americans? Does it have something to do with American culture,
or has it got to do with somethting about the teachings that is independent
of culture?
Trungpa Rinpoche: I think it is bot'h. It is because of American culture,
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especially because of this particular period of social change in which a
spiritual supermarket has developed. So we have to be smart to beat the
supermarket mentality, to not be sucked in by it.
On the other hand, it is also a very Buddhistic approach. You can
imagine finding this kind of mentality at Na]anda University. Naropa and
all the other pandits were cutting through everything with their superlogical
minds. It was quite awesome. This approach is connected with
the Buddhist idea that the teachings began with pain and suffering. This
is the first noble truth. lt is a realistic way of looking at things. It is not
enough just to be simple-minded and malleable; some weight is needed;
some cynicism. Then, by the time you get to talking about the path,
which is the fourth noble truth, you l1ave the sense of something positive
coming out, which is the devotiona] part coming through.
So it is a combination of cultural and inherent factors. Still, that is the
way it ought to begin. And it does begin that way.
Student: You used the word accident. ln your view, does that include
free will?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Well, it's both.; that is, free will is the cause of the
accident. Without free will, you can't have accident.
Student: We have been talking about Padmasambhava's way of relating
to confused people. Do you think it's appropriate to take the viewpoint
of Padmasambhava in relating to ourselves; for example, should
we let the neurosis flood in and things like that?
Irungpa Rinpoche: I think that is the whole point, yes. There is a Padmasambhava
aspect in us. There are certain tendencies not to accept our
existing confusion and to want to cut through it. There is something in
us that says we are not subject to th.c confusion, a revolutionary aspect.
Student: Is it important to try to avoid cynicism now in our approach
to the teachings?
Irungpa Rinpoche: I think the cynicism remains continuous and becomes
powerful cynicism. You cannot just switch it on and off like
changing television channels. It has to continue, and it should be there.
For instance, when you encounter a new or further level of teaching,
you should test it out in the same way as you have been doing. Then
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you will have more information and your eventual trust in it will have
more backbone.
Student: Does Padmasambhava's teaching remain up-to-date? Don't
historical and cultural changes reguire changes in the teaching?
Trungpa Rinpoche: It remains up-to-date because it is based on relating
with confusion. Our confusion remains up-to-date, otherwise it would
not confuse us. And the realization of confusion also remains up-to-date,
because confusion causes our question and prompts us to wake up. The
realization of the confusion is the teaching, so it is a constantly living
situation, constantly lived-in and always applicable.
Student: You spoke earlier about Padmasambhava being in a state of
decisionlessness. ls that the same thing as not thinking at all? You
know- the mind just functioning?
Trungpa Rinpoclte: Which is thinking. But you can think without
thinking. There is a certain kind of intelligence connected with the totality
that is more precise, but it is not verbal; it is not conceptualized at
al l. It does think in some sense, but it is not thinking in the ordinary
sense.
S: Is it thinking without scheming?
TR: Something more than that. Ct is thinking without scheming, but
it is still something more than that. It is a self-existing intelligence of its
own.
Student: Rinpoche, about devotion. I can become so joyous when
experience the dharma's living quality. There's such great joy; it's like
being high. But then I find a fall can follow this experience, which brings
me down to a sort of barren land or desolate country. ['ve been feeling
it's better to avoid these extreme feelings, because they seem always to
bring their opposite.
Trungpa Rinpoclte: You see, if your approach is a poverty approach,
then it is like begging for food. You're given food and you enjoy it while
you're eating it. But then you have to beg again, and between the two
beggings there is a very undesirable state. It's that kind of thing. It's still
relating to the dharma as the "ocher," rather than feeling that you have
it. Once you realize that the dharma is you and you are in it already, you
don't feel particularly joyous. T here is no extra bliss or any high of any
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kind at all. If you are high, then you are high all the time, so there is no
reference point for comparison. And if you are not high, then you are
extraordinarily ordinary.
Student: Doesn't your idea of accident contradict the law of karma,
which is that everything has a cause and effect?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Accident is karma. Karmic situations take place by
way of accident. It works like flint and steel coming together and causing
a spark. Events come unexpectedly. Any event is always a sudden event,
but it is a karmic one. The original idea of karma is the evolutionary
action of the twelve nidanas, which b egins with ignorance, with the potter's
wheel. That evolutionary action that begins with ignorance is an
accident.
S: The ignorance itself is the accident?
TR: Ignorance itse lf is the accident. Duality itself is the accident. It is
a big misunderstanding.
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CRAZY WISDOM SEMINAR II
Karme Chiiling, 1972
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ONE
Padmasambhava and the
Energy of Tantra
IN THIS SEMINAR, we will be studying T ibet's great Buddhist saint
Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava was the great Indian yogi and vidyadhara
who introduced the complete teachings of buddhadhanna to
Tibet, including the vajrayana, or tantra. As to the dates and historical
details, we are uncertain. Padmasambhava is supposed to have been
born twelve years after the death of the Buddha. He continued to live
and went to Tibet in the eighth cenmry to propagate the buddhadharma
there. Our approach here, as far as chronology and such things are concerned,
is entirely unscholastic. For those of you who are concerned
with dates and other such historical facts and figures, I am afraid I will
be unable to furnish accurate data. Nevertheless, the inspiration of Padmasambhava,
however old or young he may be, goes on.
Rather than studying the life and acts of Padmasambhava according
co a chronological-historical description, we will be trying co discuss the
fundamental meaning of Padmasambhava-ism, if you wish to call it
that- the basic qualities of Padmasambhava' s existence as they are connected
with the dawn of the vajrayana teachings in Tibet. We might call
this the Padmasambhava principle. The Padmasambhava principle
opened the minds of millions of people in T ibet and is already opening
people's minds in this country- and in the rest of the world for that
matter.
Padmasambhava's function in Tiibet was to bring forth the teachings
of the Buddha by relating with the T ibetan barbarians. T he Tibetans of
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those times believed in a self and a higher authority outside the self,
which is known as God. Padmasambhava's function was to destroy those
beliefs. His approach was if there is no bel.ief in the self, then there is no
belief in God- a purely uontheistic approach, l am afraid. He had to destroy
those nonexistent sand castles that we build. So the significance of
Padmasambhava is connected with t he destruction of those delusive beliefs.
His entry into Tibet meant the destruction of the delusive theistic
spiritual structures that had been established in that country. Padmasambhava
came ro Tibet and introduced Buddhism. In the course of introducing
it, he discovered that he not only had to destroy people's
primitive beliefs, but he also had ro raise their consciousness at the same
time. So in introducing the Padmasambhava principle here, we must also
relate with the same basic problems of destroying what has to be destroyed
and cultivating what has to be cultivated.
To begin with, we have to destroy certain fallacious notions connected
with holiness, spirituality, goodness, heaven, godhood, and so
forth. What makes these fallacious i:s the belief in a self, ego. Thar belief
makes it so that "I" am practicing goodness; thus, goodness is separated
from "me"; or it implies some kind of a relationship in which goodness
depends on "me" and "me" depends on goodness. Thus, fundamentally
[since ne ither exists on its own], there is nothing there to build on at all.
With this ego approach, a conclusion is drawn because of" other" factors
that prove that the conclusion is so. From that point of view, we are
building sand castles or building castles on an ice block.
According ro the Buddhist o utlook, ego (or self) is nonexistent. Ir is
not founded on any definite, real factors at all. It is based purely on the
belief or assumption that since I call myself so-and-so, therefore I exist.
And if I do not know what I am called, what my name is, then there is
no structure there on which the whole thing is based. The way this primitive
belief works is that believing in " that," the other, brings "this," the
self. If "that" exists, then " this" must also exist. I believe in "that" because
I need a reference point for m-y own existence, for "this."
In the tantric, or vajrayana, approach introduced into Tibet by Padmasambhava,
my existence in relationship with others who exist is based
on some energy. It is founded on some sense of understanding, which
could also equally well be some sense of misunderstanding.
When we ask ourselves, "Who are you, what are you?" and we answer,
" [ am so-and-so," our affirmation or confirmation is based on putting
something into that empty question. A question is like a container
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that we put something into to make it an appropriate and valid container.
There is some energy that is there between the two processes of
giving birth to a question and producing an answer, an energy process
that develops at the same time. The energy that develops between the
question and the answer is connected either with complete truth or
complete fa lsehood. Strangely enough, those two do not contradict each
other. Complete truth and complete falsehood are in some sense the
same thing. They make sense simultaneously. Truth is false, falsehood is
true. And that kind of energy, which goes on continuously, is caUed tantra.
Because it does not matter here about logical problems of truth or
falsehood, the state of mind connect ed with this is called crazy wisdom.
What I am trying to say is that our minds always are completely and
constantly fixed on relating to things as either "yes" or "no"; "yes" in
the sense of existence, "no" in the sense of disproving that existence. Yet
our framework of mind continues all the time between those two attitudes.
"Yes" is based on exactly the same sense of reference point as the
negation is.
So the basic framework of mind involving a sense of reference point
goes on concinuously, which means that there is some energy constantly
happening. What this means in terms of our relating to the Padmasambhava
principle is that we do not have to negate the experience of our
lives. We do not have to negate our materialistic or spirinially materialistic
experiences. We do not have to negate them as being bad things; nor
for that matter do we have to affirm them as being good things. We could
re late to the simultaneous birth into existence of things as they are.'
This makes sense because what we are trying to do all the time is
fight on that ground or battlefield, whether the battlefield belongs to the
attackers or the defenders, and so forth. But in all this, nobody has ever
really discussed whether this battlefield itself actually exists or not. And
what we are saying here is that that ground or battlefield does exist. Our
negations or affirmations as to whether it belongs to ourselves or the
others do not make any difference at all. All the time we are affirming
or negating, we are standing on this ground anyway. This ground we
are standing on is the place of birth as well as the place of death, simultaneously.
This provides some sense of solidness as far as the principle of
Padmasambhava is concerned.
We are talking about a particular energy that permits the teachings to
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be transmitted by the Padmasambhava principle. The Padmasambhava
principle belongs neither to wickedness nor goodness; it belongs to neither
yes nor no. It is a principle that accommodates everything that exists
in our life situations altogether. Because that energy exists in people's
Life situations, the Padmasambhava principle was able to bring the buddhadharma
to Tibet. In a sense, the theistic beliefs that existed in Tibetthe
belief in self and God as separate and the notion of trying to reach
higher realms- did have to be destroyed. Those primitive beliefs had to
be destroyed, just as we are doing here. Those primitive beliefs in the
separate reality of"me" and my object of worship have to be desttoyed.
Unless these dualistic notions are destroyed, there is no starting point for
giving birth to tantra. The birth of tantra takes place from the nonexistence
of belief in "this" and " that."
Bue Tibetans were very powerful people when Padmasambhava came.
They did not believe in philosophies or any of the cunning things that
pandits might say. They did not regard a pandit's cleverness as any kind
of credential. The Bon tradition of Tibet was very solid and definite and
sane. The Tibetans did not believe in what Padmasambhava had to say
philosophically about such things as che transitoriness of ego. They would
not make sense out of anything like that at all. They would regard such
logical analysis as just purely a collection of riddles- Buddhist riddles.
What the Tibetans believed was that life exists and I exist and my
ongoing activities of life- working with the dairy animals, working in
the fields-exist. The dairy farm and the fields do exist, and my practical
activities connected with them are my sacred activities, my sadhanas.
The Bon outlook is that these things exist because I have to feed my
child, 1 have to milk my cow, I have to grow my crops, 1 have to make
butter and cheese. I believe those simple truths. Our Bon tradition is
valid, because it believes in the sacredness of feeding life, bringing forth
food from the earth in order to feed our offspring. These very simple
things exist. This is religion, this is truth, as far as the Bon tradition is
concerned.
This simplicity is similar to what we find in the American Indian tradition.
Killing a buffa lo is an act of creativity because it feeds the hungry;
it also controls the growth of the buffalo herd and, in that way, maintains
a balance. It is that kind of ecological approach.
We find all kinds of ecological approaches of this type, which are
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extremely sane and solid. In fact, one might have second thoughts as to
whether this country is yet ripe for the presentation of Padmasambha
va's wisdom, because some people believe in those ecological philosophies
and some do not. Some people are very dogmatic advocates of
those ecological philosophies and some have no knowledge of them at
all. On account of that, one wonders a bit how to approach this culture.
But on the whole, there is a certain continuity in what is happening.
There is one basic general approach in this culture: we think that everything
exists for our benefit.
For instance, we think the body is extremely important, because it
maintains the mind. The mind feeds the body and the body feeds the
mind. We feel it is important to keep this happening in a healthy manner
for our benefit, and we have come to the conclusion that the easiest way
to achieve this tremendous scheme of being healthy is to start with the
less complicated side of it: feed the body. Then we can wait and sec what
happens with the mind. If we are less hungry, then we are more likely
co be psychologica!Jy jolly, and then we may feel like looking into the
teachings of depth psychology or other philosophies.
This is also the approach of the Bon tradition: let us kill a yak; that
will make us spiritually higher. Our bodies will be healthier, so our
minds will be higher. American Indians would say, let us kill one buffalo.
It is the same logic. It is very sensible. We could not say that it is insane
at all. It is extremely sane, extremely realistic, very reasonable and logical.
There is a pattern there to be respected, and if you put the pattern
into practice in a manner that is worthy of respect, then the pattern wi!J
continue and you wiJI achieve your results.
We are involved in that kind of approach in this country as well. A
lot of people in this country are into the Red American cult as opposed
to the White American cult. As fa1• as the Red American cult is concerned,
you have your land, you bu ild your tepee, you relate with your
children and grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchildren. You
have dignity and character. You are not afraid of any threat- you develop
warriorlike qualities. Then you consider how to handle your children,
how co teach them respect for the nation. You instruct your
children properly and you become a soli.d citizen.
Philosophies of this type are to be found not only among the Red
Americans, but also among the Ce]ts, the pre-Christian Scandinavians,
and the Greeks and Romans. Such a philosophy can be found in the past
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of any nation that had a pre-Christian or pre-Buddhist religion, a religion
of fertility or ecology- such as that of the Jews, the Celts, the American
Indians, whatever. That approach of venerating fertility and relating
with the earth still goes on, and it is. very powerful and very beautiful. I
appreciate it very thoroughly, and I could become a follower of such a
philosophy. In fact, 1 am one. I am a Bonist. 1 beLieve in Bon because I
am T ibetan.
Believing so much in this makes me think of something else that lies
outside this framework that is purely concerned with fertility, which is
purely body-oriented, which believes that the body will feed the psychology
of higher enlightenment. [t makes me have questions about the
whole thing. If you have such questions, this does not necessariJy mean
that you have to give up your previous beliefs. If you are a believer and
practitioner of the Red American c ult, you do not have to become a
White American. The question here is, how does your philosophy relate
with the reality of the psychological aspect of life? What do we really
mean by "body"? What do we really mean by "mind"? What is the
body? What is the mind? The body consists of that which needs to be
fed; the mind is that which needs to survey whether the body is fed
properly. So needing to be fed is another part of the aggregate of the
structure of mind.
The whole problem comes not from having to be fed properly or
from having to maintain your health properly; the problem comes from
belief in the separateness of "J" and "that." J am separate from my food
and my food is not me; therefore, l have to consume that particular food
that is not me so that it can become part of me.
In the Bon tradition of Tibet, the re was a mystical approach toward
overcoming separateness, based on the advaita principle, the not-two
principle, But even with this, until you became the earth itself or until
you became the creator of the worldl , you could not solve your problem.
Certain Bon ceremonies reflect a ve-ry primitive level of belief concerning
overcoming the separateness. Tihe idea is that we have to create an
object of worship and then eat the object of worship-chew it, swallow
it. Once we have digested it, we should believe that we are completely
advaita, not-two. T his is something like what happens in the Christian
traditional ceremony of Holy Communion. To begin with, there is a sepa.
rateness between you and God, or -you and the Son or the Holy Ghost.
You and they are separate entities. Until you have associated yourself
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with the flesh and blood of Christ, represented by certain materials into
which the Holy Ghost enters, then you cannot have complete union
with them. You cannot have complete union until you eat the bread and
drink the wine. T he fact that until you do that you cannot become one
shows that this is still an ace of separateness. Eating and drinking is destroying
the separateness, but fundamentally the separateness is still
there; when you shit and piss, you end up with the separateness again.
There is a problem there.
The sense of becoming one cannot be based on a physical act of doing
something- on caking part in a ceremony in this case. To become one
with the reality, [ have to give up hope of becoming one with the reality.
In other words, in relation to " this" exists and "that" exists, I give up
hope. I can't work all chis out. I give up hope. I don't care if "chat" exists
or "this" exists; I give up hope. This hopelessness is the starting point of
the process of realization.
As we were flying today from Denver to Boston, we encountered a
beautiful sight, a vision if you like. Out the window of the airplane was
a ring of light reflected on the cloucls, a rainbow that followed us wherever
we went. In the center of the rainbow ring, in the distance, there
was what seemed to be a little peanut shape, a little shadow. As we
began to descend and came closer to the clouds, we realized that the
peanut shape was actually the shadow of the airplane surrounded by the
ring of the rainbow. It was beautiful, miraculous in fact. As we descended
further into the depths of the clouds, the shadow became bigger
and bigger. We began to make out the complete shape of the airplane,
with the tail, the head, and the wings. Then, just as we were about to
land, the rainbow ring disappeared and the shadow disappeared. T hat
was the end of our vision.
This reminded me of when we used to look at the moon on a hazy
day and see a rainbow ring around tihe moon. At some point, you realize
that it is not you looking at the m oon but the moon looking at you.
What we saw reflected on the clouds was our own shadow. It is mindboggling.
Who is watching who? Who is tricking who?
The approach of crazy wisdom bere is to give up hope. There is no
hope of understanding anything at all. There is no hope of finding out
who did what or what did what or how anything worked. Give up your
ambition to put the jigsaw puzzle together. Give it up altogether, abso-
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lutely; throw it up in the air, put it in the fireplace. Unless we give up
this hope, this precious hope, there is no way out at all.
It is like trying co work out who i.:s in control of the body or the mind,
who has the closest link with God- or who has the closest link with the
truth, as the Buddhists would say. Buddhists would say that Buddha had
the truth, because he didn't believe in God. He found that the truth is
free of God. But the Christians or ot her t heists would say that the truth
exists because a truth-maker exists. Fighting out those two polarities
seems to be useless at this point. It is a completely hopeless situation,
absolutely hopeless. We do not understand- and we have no possibility
of understanding- anything at all. It is hopeless to look for something to
understand, for something to discover, because there is no discovery at
all at the end, unless we manufacture one. But if we did manufacture a
discovery, we would not be particularly happy about that later on.
Though we would thrive on it, we would know that we had cheated
ourselves. We would know that there was some secret game that had
gone on between "me" and " that."
So the introductory process of iPadmasambhava's crazy wisdom is
giving up hope, giving up hope completely. Nobody is going to comfort
you, and nobody is going to help you. The whole idea of trying to find
the root or some logic for the discovery of crazy wisdom is completely
hopeless. There is no ground, so there is no hope. There is also no fear,
for that matter, but we had better not talk about that too much.
Student: Is this hopelessness the same hopelessness you have talked
about in connection with shunyata?
Trungpa Rinpoche: I wouldn't even like to connect it with shunyata.
This hopelessness provides no security, not even as much as shunyata.
Student: I don't understand why there's no fear here. le seems there
would be a possibility of quite a lot ,of fear.
Trungpa Rinpoche: You have no hope, how can you have fear? There's
nothing to look forward to, so you have nothing to lose.
S: If you have nothing to lose a nd nothing to gain, why keep on
studying? Why not just sit back with a bottle of beer?
TR: Well, that in itself is an act o f hope and fear. If you just sic back
with a beer and relax., saying to yourself, "Well, now, everything's
okay- there's nothing to lose, nothing to gain," that in itself is an act of
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hopefulness and fearfulness. [It is trying to supply a way out,] but you
have no way out.
You see, hopelessness and fearlessness is not release, but further imprisonment.
You have trapped yourself into spirituality already. You have
created your own spiritual trip, and you are trapped in it. That's the
ocher way of looking at chis.
S: So this is like acceptance?
TR: No, I wouldn't say it is anything so philosophical as acceptance.
It is more desperate than acceptance.
S: Giving up?
TR: Giving up is desperate. In giving up, you have been squeezed
into giving up hope; you haven't requested to give up hope.
Student: Tt seems that playing on the battlefield of your territory of
"yes" and "no" is the way, since there is no way out of it.
Ihmgpa Rinpoche: I wouldn't say it's the way, because that provides
some kind of hope.
S: But there's no other battlefield to play on.
TR: Well, that's very hopeless, yes.
Student: A minute ago, you seemed to say that even shunyata could
provide a sense of security.
Trungpa Rinpoche: It depends on how you relate with it. [If we relate
to shunyata as an answer, it might provide some hope.] Until we realize
the true implication of hopelessness., we have no chance of understanding
crazy wisdom at all, ladies and gentlemen.
S: You just have to give up hope?
TR: Hope and fear.
St1tdent: It seems that you can't just sit back and do nothing. A certain
dissatisfaction arises, and so very naturally hope arises that this dissatisfaction
could somehow go away. So hope seems to be a very natural and
spontaneous thing.
Trungpa Rinpoche: That's too bad. You don't get anything out of it
anyway. That's too bad.
S: Yes, but it comes out of every situation, so I don't see how you
can possibly avoid it.
TR: You don't have to avoid it out of being hopeful that that's the
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right approach. But too bad. It's very simple. The whole thing's hopeless.
When we are trying to figure out who's on first and what's on second,
there's no way out. Hopeless!
S: Yes, but history, Buddhism, traditions of all kinds give us hope.
TR: Well, they are based on hopelessness, which is why they give
some kind of hope. When you give up hope completely, there are hopeful
situations. But it's hopeless to try and work this out logically. Absolutely
hopeless! It doesn't give us any guidelines or maps. The maps would
constantly tell us, "No hope there, no hope there, no hope here, no hope
there." Hopeless. That's the whole p•oint.
S: Hope means the sense that [ can do , I can manipulate- is that
right?
TR: Yes, the sense that I can get something out of what I am trying
to do .
Student: ls the achievement of hopelessness a one-shot affair, where
you suddenly just flip into it-
Trungpa Rinpoche: No. It's not a sudden flash that you are saved by.
Absolutely not.
S: So it's something that anybody could have some intuition of at any
point.
TR: We all do, always. But even That is not sacred.
Student: If there are no maps and no guidelines and it's all hopelessness,
is there any function for a teacher on this whole trip besides telling
you that it's hopeless?
Trungpa Rinpoche: You said it!
Student: Would you advise just diving into the hopelessness or cultivating
it little by little?
Thmgpa Rinpoch.e: It's up to you. It's really up to you. I will say one
thing. It's impossible to develop crazy wisdom without a sense of hopelessness,
total hopelessness.
S: Does that mean becoming a professional pessimist?
TR: No, no. A professional pessimist is also hopeful, because he had
developed his system of pessimism. lt's that same old hopefulness.
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Student: What does hopelessness feel like?
Trungpa Rinpoche: Just purely hopeless. No ground, absolutely no
ground.
S: The moment you become conscious that you're feeling hopeless,
does the hopelessness sort of lose its genuineness?
TR: That depends on whether you regard hopelessness as something
sacred according to a religion or sp:iri tual teaching, or whether you regard
it as utterly hopeless. That's pu rely up to you.
S: I mean, we're always talking about this hopelessness, and everybody's
beginning to feel that that's the key, so we want it. We feel hopeless
and we say, "Well, now I'm on my way." That might eliminate
some of the reality of it.
TR: Too bad. Too bad. If you re.gard it as the path in the sense that
you feel you are going to get something out of this, that won't work.
There's no way out. That approach is self-defeating. Hopelessness is nor
a gimmick. Ir means it, you know; it's the truth. It's the truth of hopelessness,
rather than the doctrine of hopelessness.
St11dent: Rinpoche, if that's so about hopelessness, then the whole picture
that we have about the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana, and so
on seems to become just a big trip leading to giving up hope. You often
talk of a kind of judo practice, usin g the energy of ego to lee it defeat
itself. Here we would somehow use the energy of hope to bring hopelessness,
rhe energy of all this ro defeat itself. ls rhar for real, or is this
whole idea of judo practice also just part of the trip?
Trungpa Rinpoche: It is said that ait the end of the journey through the
nine yanas, it is clear that the journey need never have been made. So
the path that is presented to us is an act of hopelessness in some sense.
The journey need never be made at all. It's eating your own tail and
continuing until you eat your own mouth. Thar's the kind of analogy
we could use.
S: lt seems that ro proceed you have to disregard the warning. Although
I may hear that it's hopeless, the only way I can go on at this
point is with hope. Why sit and meditate right now? Why not just go
our and play? Tr seems that everything in this situation is a paradox, bur,
you know, okay, so l'J1 be here. Even though 1 hear it's hopeless, ru
pretend.
TR: T hat's a hopeful act as well, which is in itself hopeless. It eats
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itself right up. In other words, you think you are able to deceive the path
by being a smart traveler on the path, but you begin to realize that you
are the path itself. You can't deceive the path, because you make the
path. So you're inevitably going to get a very strong message of hopelessness.
S: The only way to get that, it seems, is to keep playing the game.
TR: That's up to you. You could also give up. You have a very definite
choice. You have two very definite alternatives, which I suppose we
could call sudden enlightenment or gradual enlightenment. This is entirely
dependent upon you, on whether you give up hope on the spot or
whether you go on playing the game and improvising all kinds of other
entertainments. So the sooner you give up hope, the better.
Student: It seems that you can put up with a hopeless situation only
so long. At a certain point, you just can't relate to it anymore and will
take advantage of any distraction to turn away from it.
Trungpa Rinpoche: It's up to you.
S: Should you just force yourself again and again, continually, toTR:
Well, it comes about that waiy as your life situation goes on.
Stu.dent: If the whole situation is hopeless, on what basis do you make
decisions like whether to kill one buffalo to feed your family or five hundred
buffalo to have their heads on the wall?
Tnmgpa Rinpoche: Both alternatives are hopeless. Both are ways of
trying to survive, which is hope. So both are equally hopeless. We have
to learn to work with hopelessness. Nontheistic religion is a hopeless
approach of not believing anything. And theistic religion is hopeful, believing
in the separateness of me and the nipple I suck on, so to speak.
Sorry to be crude, but roughly it works that way.
Student: You said there's no Cod, there's no self. Is there any so-called
true self? Is there anything outside of hopelessness?
Trungpa Rinpoche: T should remiad you that this whole thing is the
preparation for crazy wisdom, which does not know any kind of truth
other than itself. .From that point of view, there's no true self, because
when you talk about true self or buddha nature, then that in itself is
trying to insert some positive attitude, something to the effect that you
are okay. That doesn't exist in this hopelessness.
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Student: This hopelessness seems to me to be a restatement of the
idea of stopping self-protection, stopping a sense of trying to improve
the situation. According to our stereotyped understanding of enlightenment,
it is in the moment that we stop protecting and improving that
real understanding can begin. ls that what you're saying?
Trungpa Rinpoche: As far as this process is concerned, there's no promise
of anything at all, none whatsoever. It's giving up everything, including
the self.
S: Then that hopelessness puts you in the here and now.
TR: Much more than that. It doesn't put you anywhere. You have no
ground to stand on, absolutely none. You are completely desolate. And
even desolation is not regarded as h ome, because you are so desolately,
absolutely hopeless that even loneliness is noc a refuge anymore. Ever ything
is completely hopeless. Even i.tseif[shouts "itself" and snaps fingers].
It's totally taken away from you, absolutely completely. Any kind of energy
that's happening in order to pr,eserve itself is also hopeless.
Student: The energy that was preserving the self, that forms a kind of
shell around the self, if that stops, 1then it just escapes into no division
between itself and what's all around it?
Trungpa Rinpoche: It doesn't give you any reassurance. When we talk
about hopelessness, it means literal h opelessness. T he sense of hope here
is hope as opposed to loss. There's no means by which you could gee
something in return anymore at all. Absolutely not. Even itself.
S: It's lost its self?
TR: Lose itself, precisely.
S: T hat kind of groundlessness seems to be more than hopelessness.
I mean, in hopelessness there's still some sense of there being someone
who is without hope.
TR: Even that is suspicious.
S: What happens to the ground? The ground drops away. I don't understand.
TR: The ground is hopelessness as well. There's 110 solidity in the
ground either.
S: I hear what you're saying. You're saying that 110 matter what direction
one looks in-
TR: Yes, you are overwhe lmed by hopelessness. AU over. Utterly.
Completely. Profusely. You are a claustrophobic situation of hopelessness.
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We're talking about a sense of hopelessness as an experience of no
ground. We are talking about experience. We are talking about an experience,
which is one little thread in the whole thing. We are talking about
the experience of hopelessness. This is an experience that cannot be forgotten
or rejected. It might reject itself, but still there is experience. It is
just a kind of thread that goes on. I thought we could discuss this further
in connection with Padmasambhava's experience of experience. But the
fact that this is Padmasambhava's experience of experience doesn't mean
anything. It's still hopeless.
Student: You seem to be saying that where there's no hope, it's intelligent.
And when you think there's hope, then that's ignorance.
Trungpa Rinpoche: I don't think so, my dear. It's completely hopeless.
Student: When you talk about hopelessness, the whole thing seems
totally depressing. And it seems you could very easily be overwhelmed
by that depression to the point wh,ere you just retreat into a shell or